We’re still buzzing from Kona – what an INCREDIBLE race! If you missed it – or more so if you watched every minute of it – you’ll enjoy our takeaways below.
it’s not over until the line: lessons from kona 2026
Coach Julie
The Ironman World Championship is back where it belongs: one day, one island, men and women on the same course. After this year, I think we can all agree it needs to stay there. No other race comes apart like Kona. The heat, humidity and wind on the Queen K don’t care about your power file or your résumé. Lucy Charles-Barclay pulled out on the run. Defending champ Solveig Løvseth passed Taylor Knibb with five miles to go, then collapsed with less than a kilometer left. That’s a true world championship. To be fair, Ironman did a better job covering the women’s race this year, and the quad box was a great idea if you had the right TV. But when the men finished, the women’s feeds went dark for about 10 minutes, right as the top two women were fighting it out. Hey Ironman, if you want women in the sport, show women in the sport.
So what can the everyday athlete take from it? First, patience pays. Vincent Luis, 37, raced his first Kona in what he said would be his last race. He didn’t chase early, and he still had legs when Gustav Iden closed to 44 seconds. Second, you never know what’s happening up the road. A year ago, Knibb stopped two miles from the finish. This year she got passed late, kept running, and watched the race come back to her when Solveg collapsed wiht 1K to go.. When it feels like your race is falling apart, remember that someone ahead of you is probably hurting just as much, or more. Never stop racing. Never give up. Keep doing what you’re doing until you cross the line. Third, respect the conditions. The athletes who adjust to the day are the ones still running at the end.
kona now = insanity and carnage
Coach Alison
This year’s Kona race was flat-out bonkers. And while we can all agree on that, we probably all have different thoughts on why it was bonkers.
Yes, the swells in the swim were substantial. Yes, the winds on the bike were pretty relentless. Yes, the heat and humidity on the run were brutal. But none of that is new to Ironman-distance racing, and certainly not new to Kona. So personally, I don’t think that’s the explanation.
There are, I’m sure, a bunch of different theories on what led to this level of absolute insanity and carnage. And while we can’t know for sure, because we don’t know exactly what led to each athlete’s performance, I’m going to take a gamble and speculate on the big picture. Here’s what I think:
If you look at the history of the Ironman World Championship through 2018, just two or three athletes dominated each era’s podiums. You had, for example, Scott/Allen/Tinley, McCormack/Alexander, and Frodeno/Lange on the men’s side and Newby-Fraser/Baker, Badmann/Bowden, Wellington/Carfrae, and Ryf/Charles-Barclay/Haug on the women’s side. But since 2019, the men and the women have each had seven different winners in seven races, and all but three of those 14 (Frodeno, Lange, and Ryf) were first-time champions.
In the past, one era of dominant names has almost always been replaced by another; this is the first time that hasn’t happened simultaneously across both the men’s and women’s fields.
What might that tell us? I think it suggests that since 2019, the top level of the professional men’s and women’s fields has gotten more competitive. That we have more pros racing at the highest level, that the depth at the top level has gotten significantly deeper. That rather than two or three or five names fighting for the podium, we have six or eight or more.
And when the field gets deeper, it raises everyone’s game. The tippy top has to work harder to stay there, and the layer just beneath it works harder to catch them. And the difference between the tippy top and the layer just beneath it becomes nearly indistinguishable.
When you’re racing for a world championship in a field where so many people are capable of winning, you have to push harder, to take risks, to race right on the edge of what your body is capable of in order to get to that top step. And when you combine that with the elements in Kona, it’s harder to stay on the correct side of things, and when you don’t, you get insanity and carnage. You get favorites who don’t finish or fade in the final 10 miles and dark horses who played their cards a little smarter – or maybe just a little luckier – and end up on top. And for those of us watching, you get a day filled with lead changes and incredulous outcomes and screams and cheers and the occasional profanity-filled yell at the broadcast. And I am here for all of it.