After a frustrating and, above all, long period of injury struggles, Lucy Charles-Barclay is completely back: the British top athlete just won Ironman Lanzarote, leading from start to finish and leaving her closest pursuer nearly half an hour behind.
The race never actually became exciting, but fans of Charles-Barclay had plenty to enjoy. It quickly became clear that the top athlete had rediscovered her pre-injury form: no one was even remotely able to stay close to her. Charles-Barclay clocked 47:02 minutes for the swim, immediately gaining a lead of a few minutes.
Those few minutes were instantly extended to a much larger lead during the bike leg. While Nina Derron in particular did everything she could to bike her way up to Charles-Barclay, she didn’t succeed. In T2, the British athlete held a lead of nearly ten minutes over Derron, while Rebecca Anderbury followed in third place, more than eleven minutes behind.
During the run, the race was truly locked down, especially after the first twenty kilometers were already ticked off. At that point, Charles-Barclay had managed to gain another couple of minutes on her lead, but it was in the second half of the run that she really accelerated. Ultimately, her lead grew to over 26 minutes.
Charles-Barclay won in a time of 9:15:39, Derron finished second in 9:42:02, and France’s Nikita Paskiewiez finished third in 9:47:36.
