Her incredibly fast swimming is a well known fact for many triathlon fans. Her female competition are afraid of her abilities during the first discipline of a triathlon, but even the pro men are often caught in the water by this great triathlete. We are talking about Lucy Charles-Barclay, of course. Until 2012 she was a national team swimmer and tried to qualify for the Olympics and, this weekend, she’ll give it another shot. Charles-Barclay will compete in the 1,500-meter freestyle at the British Swimming Selection Trials 2021.
On Sunday night Charles-Barclay will toe the line along with seven other swimmers (see image below) at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. Only a month ago Charles-Barclay was at that pool for the SLT Arena Games, where she finished second.
Charles-Barclay can count on some strong competition, but looking at the various seed times, it’s nothing she can’t handle. Charles-Barclay has a personal best of 16:35.41 from 2013, but her 17:24.26 seed time is the sixth-fastest in the field of eight. It is, however, still well behind the current world record of 15:20:48 held by Katie Ledecky (USA).
After trying to qualify for the Olympics in 2012, and missing the spot, Charles shifted her focus to triathlon. As an amateur she won her age group at the Ironman World Championship in 2015, and she then turned pro. Since then she’s achieved some great results including the win of Challenge Roth in 2019 and finishing second at the Ironman World Championship later that same year.
