More gossip for us to pass the off season.
Too lazy to watch the videođŤŁ
How many weeks for recovery? Can we safely assume she wonât be in NZ or Geelong or T100 Oz?
Can we get the cliff notes?
Its a 6 min video for heavens sake.
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Plantaris is a thin muscle down the back of the calf along with the gastrocnemius and soleus, plus long thin tendon (between 30â45cm (longest in body)). 8-12% of humans havenât got this muscle.
Went for it and âun-neededâ tendon removed - not revealed which dog ate/chewed tendon after vital video content captured.
Now rehab. No indication of timeline of return to lower body training. Can do upper body.
Goals are Nice (no validation required after Marbella win, otherwise would have to race a 70.3 before 30th June) and IMWC (validation for AQ (from 2023 win) needed before 19th August).
After 3 years post pandemic of max 5 races a year, Charles-Barclay raced 9 and finished 8 last year. Given this tendon tribulation, I note she nevertheless raced the T100 final, honouring her contract, but also motivated I guess by the chance of the $200k ftw of the T100 Tour.
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Knibb mentioned in an interview if you donât validate, you loose AQ for subsequent years for 70.3. Hence why she has signed up for Dallas and Oceanside to qualify
A bit of a weird system
Not weird at all, been this way forever. You donât have to qualify because you have the AQ, but you do have to participate in racing.
Correct, and I also think not âweirdâ. It has changed several times though ( @TheStroBro ) - previously last yearâs champ had to validate - not now.
IRONMAN want their champions to compete in at least one branded race before the actual WC. The pandemic screwed the whole validation bit up, and then athletes Extracted the Michael: eg Sodaro raced no IM in 2023 and chose Roth instead; Ryf did the same; Iden did not (chose not to) race an IM before he raced Kona in 2024.
But LCBâs 5-year exemption from her win in 2021 is, effectively, running out for 2027 so just taking the 2025 IM 70.3 WC Winner Exemption will have no effect on the qualification route in 2027.
Knibb, though, chose not to race a 70.3 (other than Taupo) between July 2024 and June 2025, so (deliberately) used her 2024 IM 70.3 WC Winner Exemption to gain her start in Marbella. This voided any future â5-yearâ exemptions sheâd earned (2022, 23 and 24). But with far less onerous T100 demands (if indeed she races any - I assume sheâll race Texas to KQ, but maybe too close to Oceanside).
Whatâs really funny is that neither the 2025 nor the 2026 version of the document lists the 2024 winners as also getting a five-year exemption, but then the 2026 one says:
If a Five-Year Exemption holder (i.e., a previous winner of the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship race in 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024) wins the 2025 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship race then the Five-Year Exemption holder will have two options:
Would be interesting to see how Ironman would react if Jelle Geens tried to cash in on his SchrĂśdingerâs Five-Year-Exemption. /s That is the kind of sloppiness which results in completely unnecessary losses in court in other fields of business, where clients and contractors are less forgiving than pro triathletes.
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I always presumed the validation thing was similar to IMWC.
The 2026 (and I think post pandemic) IM and 70.3 PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE QUALIFICATION, EXEMPTIONS & VALIDATION docs are mirrored (each year).
Here we go
Running.
Sore leg. Investigated. Weird tendon.
Thickening of this weird tendon equaled an Upset to the nerve on the Achilles.
Tendon removed
very common surgery
Some people donât even have this weird tendon
Doing lots of sit ups and mental visualisation to ensure will be fast again
Confident will race well when back
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I put together a few words (mostly aimed at clinicians however it may still be of interest to others) on her surgery: Lucy Charles-Barclay's Achilles tendon surgery
They normally recover quite well and Iâd expect to see her back running in some form at closer to 6 weeks rather than 12 post op.
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Thanks for that Aidan..Awesome read.
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Not that we can really know, but I am a little curious at how this could be exacerbated from doing most runs in super shoes. Itâs been awhile since I watched an LCB video, but I feel most of them showed race shoes or other higher stack, super squishy foam models.
Iâm quite sure the shoes she runs in on video is carefully choreographed, so probably Asics wants her to run in super shoes on video.
She is almost certain she broke her left little toe. She crushed it with her crutch!
Toe that you don´t need to function as a high level athlete! Though it hurts.
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