It was pretty briefly mentioned in passing, but the message was as big as it was bizarre for Ironman: Lucy Charles-Barclay will not compete in this year’s Ironman World Championship in Nice. She prefers the PTO races and does not want to defend her World Ironman title until next year in Kona. This is obviously a huge blow to Ironman, which thus already sees the attractiveness of its most important race plummet immediately.
Charles-Barclay told so at the PTO press conference announcing the new T100 series. That series consists of eight races in 2024 and has a prize pool of seven million dollars. “I see defending my Ironman World title as defending my title in Kona and not in Nice, so I’m focusing fully on the T100,” Barclay said.
Charles-Barclay last year crowned herself Ironman World Champion for the first time in history.
