Originally published at: Slowtwitch Predicts the Women’s IM World Championship Podium - Slowtwitch News
The stage is set for fireworks come Saturday, as the women’s IRONMAN World Championships heads to Nice, France. It is a star-studded field, led by defending world champion Lucy Charles-Barclay. The needs of the Nice course are different than those of Kona, which could mix up the podium order. Some of our editorial team has come together and determined what it might take to win on Sunday, as well as our respective picks for the podium.
Jordan Rapp (2011 ITU Long Distance World Champion, Slowtwitch CTO) – On What it Will Take to Win
Unlike in Kona, Nice doesn’t quite offer the same sort of guarantees around weather. Yes, Kona varies. But you know that it will be hot and humid. The strengths of the wind are really the big variable. The current weather forecast in Nice is about as close to perfect as imaginable, with a low of 61F (16C) and a high of 73 (23C). But there is rain in the forecast for Monday, which would meaningfully change the race if it shows up a day early, as the Nice bike course is fairly technical – Gustav Iden had his breakout 70.3 WC win there on a road bike. Rain would definitely shift the race in favor of the better bike handlers.
The cooler temperatures also makes the race much more wide open. The ability to tolerate Kona’s weather has always been a prerequisite to winning there, which was always one of the stronger arguments for moving the race around. The forecasted temperatures in Nice should make for a very fast, very competitive race, though it can also come back to bite athletes who get lulled into a false sense of security around fueling and hydrating. No matter the conditions, 8+ hours of racing is a long time and mistakes in the early going often don’t show up until late in the marathon. Especially if the rain shows up early and athletes are less confident about fueling whenever they want to because they are focused on bike handling, you should still expect to see some of the classic explosions that accompany any race where athletes are pushing their limits for such a long time. If the rain holds off, don’t expect the weather to be a factor. If the rain shows up early, expect some drama on that bike course.
The cooler temperatures also mean a wetsuit swim is virtually guaranteed, which along with the cooler temperatures should keep the race that much tighter early on. Nice’s bike course will serve to break up the field in ways that the Kona course simply cannot. Bike handling matters in Nice in ways that it simply doesn’t in Kona, except when the winds are truly howling. Relative power – w/kg – will matter more here than it does in Kona. While the Kona bike course is hillier than some might expect with approximately 1500m/4800ft of climbing, virtually all of it comes during the long, straight grind up to Hawi. The Nice course is substantially hillier – with about 2500m/8000ft of climbing – but the delta between the two actually understates just how different they are. VeloViewer offers the best interface for viewing bike courses, and I think it’s worth taking a look at their interactive map to get a real sense of how tricky this bike course can be, especially if it’s wet. The Nice course is also very new – the one-loop course was first introduced in 2023 – so nobody has much experience on this course, especially in a race-day setting. Athletes who raced here at IM France this summer, like Charles-Barclay, should have a major advantage in terms of knowing the course and how it feels to actually race on it.
I’d also expect some of the wind-tunnel-optimized positions may incur a bit of regret against positions slightly more optimized for comfort, especially when descending. I think athletes would do well to opt for wider tires, where the added grip of a larger contact patch will mean that much more confidence. Likewise bikes with long front-center geometry that keeps weight distribution manageable when descending might also give a subtle advantage. The bike course tends to be more decisive in the women’s race than in the men’s, and I’d expect that to be especially true in Nice.
I expect we’ll see a well-under-2:50 marathon here. Maybe several. That type of speed can erase some pretty massive deficits. The run course is essentially the inverse of the bike course, flat as a pancake. You can always count on explosions in an Ironman marathon, but I think that it’s way more likely to see a “let it rip” gamble on the run actually pay off here. I think the weather makes it more likely that a record-setting run might take the win here from someone who is able to simply stay “close enough” on the bike, especially with a wetsuit swim making the first leg that much less of a factor, especially in terms of overall fatigue.
I predict that the fastest run of the day will take the win. The bike will determine the overall podium. But the run will be what sets the specific order.
David Pinsonnealt (Slowtwitch IM Pro Series Lead Writer)
It would have been reasonable to pencil in Charles-Barclay to repeat as IRONMAN World Champion, prior to her DNF at T100 London. She cruised to victory at IRONMAN Nice in June but had the third fastest bike split in a non-Pro Series field. If I knew Lucy was fully healthy, I would put her in my top-3. I do not, however, think you can be anything less than 100% to prevail this year. For that reason, I am going to go with Anne Haug, Kat Matthews, and Laura Philipp, in that order.
Haug was on another level at Challenge Roth, beating Philipp by more than 10 minutes. Matthews has been a model of consistency this season and has a pair of head to head decisions over Philipp at T100 races. It was good to see Chelsea Sodaro finish 8th at T100 London. She beat Els Visser by 17 minutes at IRONMAN New Zealand in March and has gone through some struggles since then. India Lee was the surprise winner in the heat at T100 Miami and then won the Challenge Championship. She has since been 8th and 9th in T100 races. Sodaro or Lee on the podium would not shock me. I just do not feel confident picking either of them over Haug-Matthews-Philipp.
Kristin Jenny (Slowtwitch Interviews and Features)
1. Laura Philipp
2. Lucy Charles-Barclay
3. Kat Matthews
A close fourth and fifth: Anne Haug and Els Visser.
I picked Laura Philipp as the overall winner for the 2024 IMWC Nice because she is clearly so hungry for and dedicated to going all in for this win. After her penalty in Kona in 2022 and then coming in third in Kona in 2023, I can sense that Philipp is ready to see herself on the top step. She’s spent most of her year training in the mountains and testing her bike setup just for the conditions of the Nice bike course and she appears healthy and mentally sharp heading into race day. I think Lucy Charles-Barclay is another strong contender here – she stormed away with the win at IM Nice earlier this year, beating second by 17 minutes. I think Philipp’s mountain-specific training may give her an edge over Charles-Barclay, although I imagine the two will end up riding fairly close together depending on how much of a gap Charles-Barclay has coming out of the swim. Fellow Brit Kat Matthews is my third place choice – I envision her staying near the top 5-7 women on the bike but never leading it, and then picking off women one by one on this flat, speedy marathon course.
Lastly, I think you can’t count out Anne Haug and Els Visser. Haug’s had an up-and-down year with health challenges, but has still found tremendous success in races like IM Lanzarote, which she won handily. I’m just not sure if she’s been able to put in the kind of volume and intensity that the other ladies have – but she’s fairly private, so who knows, maybe she has after all. Els is my dark horse top five choice. She’s a solid enough swimmer to not concede too much time to the uber-swimmers, and she’s a monster on the bike when she finds her momentum. She’s been training in mountains for most of the year, too, and has been doing lots of bike volume on mountain passes in St. Moritz. She can also put together a great run on the right day, but would need a super-charged bike to fend off the likes of super-speedy runners such as Matthews.
Ryan Heisler, Slowtwitch Editor-in-Chief
This is, in my opinion, a much more difficult podium to predict, as the challenges of the Nice course are simply so different than what you find in Kona. First, as Jordan mentioned, is the weather: there’s not much wind to speak of, with clouds expected to roll in during the afternoon and mild temperatures. It’s going to be conducive to a very fast day of racing which will not punish athletes in the same way that, say, the Natural Energy Lab does every year.
But the bike will be a difference maker. That means any of your top-riders — Lucy Charles-Barclay, Laura Philipp, Kat Matthews, India Lee — I would expect to see an extremely large gap out of these leaders back to the running elite, led by Anne Haug. Charles-Barclay’s Achilles will remain a question mark going on the run, as it’s been feast or famine for her this year. But I think she’s up to the challenge.
Ultimately I see Charles-Barclay defending her crown, barely holding off Philipp for the win. Haug will put together a blistering run that will see her mow down everyone except the leading two to claim that last podium slot, extending her seven year run of podium finishes at IRONMAN World Championship races.
Photos: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images for IRONMAN