World CHAMPION IN-WAITING

With eight hours of racing on the clock, the physiological blow of the pass typically lands the crushing blow; hope fades as the sweat-soaked tri-suit of the successful hunter reduces to a dot on the barren landscape of the Queen K.

It’s a rare moment in the history of Ironman’s World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, that a battle-worn triathlete, passed in the final 10km of the marathon, summons a last scintilla of strength to fight back and regain the podium position. Yet for Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay, Kona 2019 registered such an occasion.

Everything was screaming: internally, a body pleading ‘enough’; externally, husband Reece urging one final effort, and, in the relative isolation of the lava fields, the 26-year-old from Greater London dug deeper than perhaps she believed possible to claw her way back to re-pass Australia’s Sarah Crowley.

“I just went all-in and thought: ‘Let’s see what I can do,’” she says. “My legs were cramping immediately as I started running that marathon. To be able to come back and push that hard at the end is my proudest moment