IRONMAN World Championship Kona 2025: YELLOW CARD penalty for leader Charles-Barclay
The 2023 Kona champion saw her hopes of a repeat dented by a 60-seconds sanction for unintentional littering for a dropped bottle.
Lucy Charles-Barclay‘s bid for a repeat IRONMAN World Championship win in Kona was first put under threat after she was hit with an ‘unintentional littering’ penalty.
The Briton, the winner the last time the women’s race was held on the Big Island in Hawaii in 2023, had enjoyed a near-perfect race to that point.
She led out the swim in now-customary fashion, actually going 10 seconds quicker than two years previously.
And she continued to put the power down on the bike, staying clear of the field early on – with Taylor Knibb emerging as her closest challenger.
And of the other three big five favourites, 2022 winner Chelsea Sodaro exited the race before the halfway point with what looked like stomach issues.
But last year’s one-two Laura Philipp and Kat Matthews were losing ground and now nearly 10 minutes back.
Author's summary: Lucy Charles-Barclay faces a setback in her IRONMAN World Championship title defense.