Back to the late July date for T100 London 2026.
I hope they can get to a better balanced schedule throughout the year (same wtih WTCS schedule). How many '26 races are confirmed now? Australia is going to open the season in ~March? I assume Las Vegas in Oct ish? FR this year was originally in May or June I think vs now late August, so if they confirm will it go back to the original time frame?
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Derron might not swim with Knibb… her swim can be vulnerable. There are several occasions when she has missed the front pack in T100 with Vancouver being the latest but see also Las Vegas.
I’ll be interviewing her later today so we’ll see what she thinks of that scenario 
She can possibly swim with Knibb, but not LCB!
The math equation doesnt work here. If Knibb swims with Lucy(fully expected now) and Julie cannot swim with Lucy, then K+L does not Equal J… (-;
We have now seen in the T100 series that the current and ex ITU ladies can swim with Lucy, some even leading her out… And this will be a huge part of Knibb’s plan too, gap Julie in the swim and make her bike either on her own, or have to wait for Kat and any others gapped even further…In other words, make them burn early matches to get into the race and hope they are needed at the end…
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I’m guessing Lucy puts in a huge swim block before Kona and goes off the front solo again. Knibb will catch her on the bike and then we’ll see how long Lucy can hold on.
Yes, I think the idea over 3.8km in Kailua Bay that LCB will not get a decent gap to Knibb is barking. Derron may have a great swim but more likely she’ll herself be down on Knibb. And then others: Matthews gap Philipp with Loevseth with one of those. Let the chase commence. Run speed order: Philipp, Matthews, Loevseth, Derron (NB only second full), Loevseth, Knibb, LCB.
If 2023 LCB turns up, she’ll be difficult to beat.
Set up to be an absolute cracker, only missing, sadly, is Haug, chasing Philipp.
Sodaro: heaven only knows: a finish will be a win for her. First needs to validate in the next 17 days and then must stay run fit for two months.
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We had this same conversation just before that last T100 race, most saying knibb could or would not swim with Lucy. Well as I said then, she did, gapped Julie, and it was the difference in the race as it played out. Lucy can swim all the blocks she wants too, everyone think Knibb is not training to stay on those feet? There just isn’t enough pool difference between the two(and others now too) for sitting on the feet not to be possible. I think folks forget that most the ITU ladies who are top swimmers, were within 30 to 40 seconds of Lucy’s best times, a gap easily closed by drafting.
Now of course it is not easy, and those athletes have to choose to do this in their race plans. But as we saw in the last T100(and other races) if those ladies choose to sit on her feet, they can and will. My guess it will be part of Taylor’s race plan to gap Julie in the swim, it has so much potential to make her race so much harder overall. And that is the goal, make your race as easy as it can be, while making others work harder, and in the end those tiny %'s are what decide the winners.
And the thing with Knibb’s swimming, if she doesnt swim on Lucy’s feet, she is likely pulling and dragging others along with her. A double whammy in the scheme of the day, so a tiny bit of extra effort hanging on feet for her will pay big dividends all day long…At least that’s what I would do, and she actually did last time out with many of the same players…What have you seen lately that would make her deviate from that winning formula this time??
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I didn’t know Kona was part of the 2025 T100 World Tour. Cool!
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Reading about concerns with Algae at the London swim venue then. Apparently the Royal Dock open water swimming has been closed down… Not exactly what T100 need!
Ya, I was going to reply here with some Kona thoughts on Knibb then I saw the thread title…
So I will anyway 
Knibb surely knows that she didn’t use the bike as a weapon last time around in Kona. She knows that she wasn’t racing like it was a world championship in Texas. And she also respects the distance and knows her limitations.
Two years ago, I was more convinced than I am now that Knibb would come in and throw the gauntlet down.
Now, I still get the feeling she’s being very cautious or deliberate in her training. I think to win Kona, unless you have all the cards (which Knibb does not on the run), you have to be willing to risk losing it all (Laidlow did that spectacularly and failed) or just trust your own race and hope the race unfolds the way you want it (Sodaro).
The latter feels perhaps like how I imagine Knibb will race. She’s going to put together a great swim, and bike her numbers and see where that leaves her. However it ends up, somehow I suspect the 8 hours of racing will be far more exciting than anything T100 puts together this year.
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I think comparing T100 swims isn’t always the best comparison’s to what can/will/usually happen at the IM distance. Not to say that Knibb is going to get gapped, but to say the IM distance is probaly going to be LCB’s best weapon for her to then gap others.
@Lurker4 it’s always felt like to me Knibb has to use her S/B strength more than just “race your race”. Obviously you don’t want to race the bike like your hair is on fire like Laidlow did, but it kinda feels like Knibb needs to force the bike to put others more in a sport of bother earlier. Obviously her bike numbers even “paced” well are going to be strong. I just wonder if she has to sorta do a bit more of gambling than just “race her race”. Which yes can cause her to blow up, but also should put others in a decision making mode earlier in the race as well?
But of course when you haven’t broken 3hrs for the IM run yet (yes only 2 races so far and she’s still young in IM development), that also has to be addressed within the race plan. So theroetically would require even better “pacing” on the bike to then run well. I wonder if you can fix that in training, vs racing (she’s only raced 2 IM’s), like there’s an element of race day that just can never be replicated in training. I mean no duh training is where you maximize ability, but she’s sorta ran seemingly uncharacteristically slower for her 2 runs (even giving Kona a total pass since she was “under trained” going into it) than what she *should have been running for her run/itu background.
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Remind me if Knibb has swam with LCB over an IM distance swim? (No chance Derron does!)
You did prove me wrong last time, but Knibb was ever so close in losing contact at that Aussie exit!
Well they have swam that distance together exactly once, at Kona, at Knibb’s first ever ironman, and with instructions to let her go and just swim and ride her own race, at her own predetermined(by coach) pace. So I guess no is the answer, you want to lay me some odds? (-;
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We can certainly look at this a bit closer to race day, loser donates a few quid to the charity of choice of winner!
Yes, Knibb lost her on the run up and out around the beach there, then what happened? She “swam” back onto her feet closing that gap…I’m telling you guys, it is a different world from years ago when Lucy could just swim off the front and build a 3 minute lead. So many ITU ladies have switched over and their swims are light years ahead of the traditional long course athletes that were forming lead groups behind her. And I think Lucy is of the mindset now that if you are gonna sit on my feet, better take a turn at the front sometime too. Finally some tactics in long course swimming races…
My impression is Texas she was undertrained too. Reading between the lines, over the course of the long season they didn’t want to come into Texas or T100 SF firing on all cylinders.
Yes but imo there is a huge difference in “under trained” because you had 2 months to train up for said IM race and then coming into your early season in B level fitness There is no way in hell she was happy with running a 3:05 even if the goal was only to KQ. Her coach probably had to do a lot of reasoning with her that week after.
Do you know if she’s doing a lot of sauna prep regularly? I hope she is now. But I could see coming off a cold winter in Boulder that hot and humid Texas was an additional factor. I’m not sure why you’d be confident she wasn’t ok with her run if the plan was to swim well, bike well, and just get another marathon run under her belt.
If she hadn’t been training to run 2:55 why would she expect to run 2:55? Or had she?
If you think that she was happy basically running the same time in a IM that she did self-coaching herself in 2 months of IM prep with a year of guidance/training under her new coach…thumbs up.
Athletes/coaches will obviously have all types of A/B/C goals and objectives coming into a race. KQ was the biggest goal she needed to achieve and she did. She also is a fierce as hell competitor, so I have no clue what her actual true goals/paces were. I have some clues knowing her personally, what she likely wanted to accomplish, and thus feel confident in saying she was likely irked internally that she had that run split even though the main objective was accomplished- KQ. I think nutrition is probaly the biggest variable she has to figure out moving from ITU where it’s in race almost non-existent to where it basically has a huge impact on your results (then affecting pacing, etc).