Pool and open water swimmer-turned professional triathlete Lucy Charles-Barkley won the 2023 Ironman World Championship in unprecedented record-setting fashion today in 8 hours 24 minutes.
Right from the start, the 30-year-old British swimmer took off and opened up a significant lead on the 3.8 km swim leg over the smooth, flat waters off the Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. With a 16 minute 46 second 1500m freestyle ability, the former Great North Swim winner established her dominance from the first arm stroke under nearly cloudless skies – and never let up.
Charles-Barkley’s Ironman kicked off with 49:36 swim. She powered through the bike with a strong 4:32:29 leg, and finished off a long, hot day with 2:57:37 marathon run. Her three legs strung together for a course record of 8 hours 24 minutes 31 seconds. She broke Daniela Ryf’s course record of 8:26:18 set in 2018.
Charles-Barkley’s time was so fast that it would have enabled her to be the overall male and female winner up to the year 2004 (see below).
While bike technology has improved and the course conditions in Kona are always different over the years, Charles-Barkley’s time compared favorably with the following overall winners (in a fun thought experiment in a year where only the women raced on the Kona course):
- 1981 – John Howard in 9 hours 38 minutes
- 1982 (February) – Scott Tinley 9 hours 19 minutes
- 1982 (October) – Dave Scott 9 hours 8 minutes
- 1983 – Dave Scott 9 hours 5 minutes
- 1984 – Dave Scott 8 hours 54 minutes
- 1985 – Scott Tinley 8 hours 50 minutes
- 1986 – Dave Scott 8 hours 28 minutes
- 1987 – Dave Scott 8 hours 34 minutes
- 1988 – Scott Molina 8 hours 31 minutes
- 1990 – Mark Allen 8 hours 28 minutes
- 1998 – Thomas Hellriegel 8 hours 33 minutes
- 2001 – Tim DeBoom 8 hours 31 minutes
- 2002 – Tim DeBoom 8 hours 29 minutes
- 2004 Normann Stadler 8 hours 33 minutes
For more information and photographs, visit @ironmantri.
For a more thorough race description, visit Ironman here.
© 2023 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
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