All eyes were on St George this past weekend as the final long course championship race of the year took place. The women’s field consisted of mainly middle distance specialists such as Paula Findlay, Holly Laurence and Emma Pallant-Browne. Lucy Charles-Barclay was the only major player to race in Kona. Short course athletes Flora Duffy and Taylor Knibb were among the top contenders. Duffy has had a turbulent start to middle distance racing while Knibb has been excellent since she started racing at the distance in 2021.
Swim
Lucy Charles-Barclay was quick off the mark and established a small lead through the opening minutes of the swim. At this point it looked like she was going to stay away but Lotte Wilms came charging back and brought Taylor Knibb with her. This group then swam together for the remainder off the swim and Wilms even tried to overtake Charles-Barclay at the end of the swim. Charles-Barclay made a dash to the line to ensure she recorded the fastest time. This was an amazing swim by Wilms who had been off the lead pace at the Canadian and US Opens.
Duffy and Lawrence were the next out of the water around 30 seconds back. They were closely followed by a group featuring India Lee and Ellie Salthouse.
A further 40 seconds back came Pallant-Browne and Findlay. An excellent swim for Pallant-Browne, who I expected to lose at least 2 minutes to the front, and maybe a slightly disappointing swim for Findlay who would have hoped to be closer to Lawrence, Lee and Salthouse.
Bike
T1 transitions were slower than usual as athletes layered up to battle the cold conditions. Most athletes reached for gloves, arm warmers and a jacket. Knibb took extra time to put on socks so was overtaken by Lawrence and Duffy before heading onto the bike.
Charles-Barclay was first out on the bike but her lead didn’t last for long as Knibb blasted through the field to take the lead within 5 miles. Knibb wasted no time dropping Charles-Barclay and began establishing a strong lead. She looked a class apart from the start of the bike course and her new TT bike and aero helmet will only be helping matters.
Behind Knibb a chase group of 5 athletes had established, Findlay and India Lee bridged up to Duffy, Lawrence and Charles-Barclay. The group were sharing the work, with Findlay taking the most turns on the front, but were still haemorrhaging time to Knibb. Through half way Knibb’s lead had been stretched to over 3 minutes and Lee, who had been riding well, had to serve a penalty. Pallant-Browne was struggling in the cold conditions early in the bike and had dropped 3 minutes to the chasers.
Lawrence made a surge to get to the front of the chasers but was immediately overtaken again by Findlay. This surge took a lot of energy out of Lawrence and she was subsequently dropped from the group. Climbing Snow Canyon Findlay and Duffy dropped Charles-Barclay at this point I wondered if this was the Kona fatigue catching up but she was able to latch back on on the descent.
The chasers came into T2 together, 6:45 back from Knibb who looked set to take the title. Lawrence was a further 2:45 back and a group of four athletes featuring Wilms, Pallant-Browne, Nikki Bartlett and Imogen Simmonds were a total of 11:10 off the lead.
Run
Knibb looked strong and fluid heading out onto the run, this was probably the best I have seen her running off the bike in a long course event. She was through the first mile before the chasers were off the bike.
Through 5k Knibb had put a further 45 seconds into the chasing group of three, who were all running together. Only Pallant-Browne, Tamara Jewett and Jackie Herring were running similar pace to Knibb. Duffy and Findlay pushed the pace over the next 5k and started to drop Charles-Barclay. Duffy looked in control as this point but heading onto the second lap Findlay was able to establish a gap heading uphill. Findlay built a lead of over a minute across the next 5k, while Duffy and Charles-Barclay remained close to each other. Pallant-Browne was moving through the field and had closed to within 1:40 of 3rd place.
Duffy began to fade with 5k to go and was over taken by Charles-Barclay. Pallant-Browne was still looking strong, she moved past Duffy into 4th and with just over 3k to go she had closed to within 10 seconds of Charles-Barclay. She breezed past and ran away to complete the podium behind Knibb and Findlay.
Jewett started the run in 18th and was able to throw down an incredible 1:16 run split to move up to 9th.
Results
Knibb dominated as soon as she hit the bike. Her bike split was similar to Lucy Charles-Barclay in 2021 so maybe isn’t as untouchable as some think but we will have to see if anyone can get close in races next year. Next stop for Knibb is WTCS Bermuda where she will battle against Flora Duffy again.
- Taylor Knibb – 4:03:19
- Paula Findlay – 4:08:56
- Emma Pallant-Browne – 4:10:44
- Lucy Charles-Barclay – 4:11:23
- Flora Duffy – 4:13:32
PTO Rankings
Coming into the race Taylor Knibb only had two races against her name in 2022, this had dropped her to 42nd in the rankings. This performance rockets her up the leaderboard to a predicted 4th place. Similarly Flora Duffy only had two eligible races and was sitting in 74th position before St George. Her top 5 finish moves her up to 16th overall.
Check out predicted points and rankings from St George below.
Triathlon Insights 
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