Kona special edition: Oct. 11, 2026
This is your from-the-ground special post-race edition, so we don’t wait four more days to talk about those wild races. We’ll be back to regular Wednesday newsletters later this week.
- Kelly
The storm here broke Friday night before the race started. The rain dumped and the wind blew. We walked to the pier in a drizzle.
And I walked back to the hotel, along the last mile of the run course, after the pro press conference and the interviews were done, watching emotional age-groupers finish down that final stretch of road in the dark. Go ahead, try not to cry.
Vince Luis cried at the finish. Taylor Knibb cried. Gustav Iden definitely cried, second place here after the last few years and wearing a kit to honor his mom passing away; he was emotional enough that he needed to take a break from answering questions. Dr. Matt (really Med Student Matt) choked up. Imogen Simmonds choked up. Kristian Blummenfelt choked up too, he looked so sad, but probably for different reasons.
In general, I don’t really believe in island magic. I think a lot of what we chalk up to some ineffable Hawaiian mystique is mostly the outcome of scientifically explainable weather conditions combined with extreme situations that leave us emotionally strung out. Of course we cried. Ironman is very good at what they do.
Lucy Charles-Barclay DNF’d in the same spot she DNF’d last year. Julie Derron walked before she rallied for third. Taylor Knibb vomited for a bit, but slowed down, managed her body, and kept it together. Which ended up mattering (a lot) when Solveig Lovseth suddenly wobbled and went down so close to the win she could practically see the finish line. Sam Laidlow and Patrick Lange pulled out. Kristian Blummenfelt went backwards in the heat. And then, in the lead for so long, Magnus Ditlev started walking too — with less than 10km to go.
Someone in the finish area asked me why does this keep happening more now? The wild collapses and leaders imploding so suddenly so last-minute. It’s always happened in Kona, but not this extreme, not every year. Why now?
I said: Because they’re going harder.
None of you picked Vince
Not one single one of you had him in your podium picks. Which maybe was a mistake. (One could argue obviously it was a mistake, since were were all wrong.) But I’m not sure even Vince had picked Vince.
He was 4th at IM Texas this year, 5th at IM Frankfurt. Kona was supposed to be a bucket-list last race before retirement. Another 4th or 5th or 8th or 15th seemed likely. A fond farewell to the sport. I think he probably thought his best days, his peak days, those years when he couldn’t lose an Olympic race, were behind him, so who were we to argue.
Do you remember peak Vincent Luis? When he won the World Triathlon world championship title in 2018 and 2019. When he was the heavy favorite going into the 2020 Olympics — who was going to bet against Vince back then. He was a huge deal in France, a Nike athlete with real sponsorship money. It was the Baller Vince Era and he made that clear. And then the Olympics were postponed and he just couldn’t hold onto it for an extra year. It’s hard to maintain that dominance for that long. And slowly it became one of those little setbacks that leads to another and another until it’s a big setback. There’s probably an Ironman metaphor in there, or a life metaphor: Sometimes you have to walk and cool down and then you rally and come back stronger, and sometimes you have to walk and then you never start running again.
Vince said this win meant more than those other two Olympic-distance world titles, because of the years it came out of. He said he still plans to retire now, winning didn’t change his mind, this was his last race. Win Kona, drop the mic, and go out on top. He said he’d rather leave standing on his feet than on his knees. He said no one’s ever done it before and he’d be an original.
Was it the most baller move we’ve ever seen in triathlon?
And then, again?
At the finish line, Taylor Knibb was briefly at a loss for words. (She got over it.) All she could say was: “Solveig and I have to stop doing that — the collapsing part. Holy smokes, I’m stunned.”
We do probably need to stop doing this collapsing thing. Or at least we need to decide what amount of darkness we’re OK with. As a sport.
Last year, Lucy went down in the Energy Lab, and then Taylor went down with a little over a mile to go, and Solveig then Kat then Laura ran by her. This year, Lucy again and then Solveig went down with 3/4s of a mile to go, and Taylor then Laura then Julie then Kat ran by her.
Evidently, Solveig was still able to answer questions, knew what was going on and where she was, wanted the cameras to stop filming and the ref to stop annoying her as she lay on the ground, got up, lay on the ground, got up. She remembers it — unlike last year’s collapses from Lucy or Taylor, who don’t remember anything — and she ultimately walked the last 800m in for 8th. One could argue that she wasn’t in real danger of doing permanent damage. Probably. (Though aren’t we all in danger of doing permanent damage with this stuff.)
Still. It freaked out so many people with flashbacks of last year. So many people, in the finish area, who lived through it with Taylor and Lucy, said: Ironman should have a plan, Ironman should step in, after last year Ironman should be prepared to handle these things.
I don’t know what that would look like exactly. Who would get to decide how much is too much? Everyone outside of triathlon already thinks this all insane anyway, all crazy. Where’s the crazy line that we shouldn’t cross? Taylor Knibb said Pat wrote on the whiteboard out on the Queen K, after she was throwing up, that “vomiting is normal.” And he’s not wrong. It is normal here.
And, yet, there’s a line somewhere. One has to assume. A line even we wouldn’t cross.
Right?
An assortment of other Kona things
Kat Matthews, in 4th, looked the most out of it in the post-race press conference, and didn’t have the usual joy you see from her at the finish line. She was the only one who actually prompted the announcer on the finish line mic to say, “Are you OK?” I think the run was hard for her, she had to work her way up through the field.
Julie Derron and Imogen Simmonds looked the happiest. Imogen so thoroughly didn’t expect to be in the post-race press conference that she didn’t even bring post-race clothes and had to borrow some. And she was back at the finish line at midnight.
Imogen also told this wild story about deciding to swim back to her hotel from bike check-in on Friday, roughly a mile away. The waves were still crazy Friday, and she didn’t realize how bad it was until she started getting pulled under and held down when she tried to get out. She said she thought ‘oh this is how people drown.’ But, ultimately, she decided it was a sign from the island that she had made it and the island was OK with her.
The swells and chop were bad enough yesterday, during the race, that it broke up packs and made for slow times. Laura Philipp got seasick.
And the wind on the bike was brutal. Both directions. The motos said they were getting blown around.
Taylor Knibb said the vision in her right eye went blurry, which has happened before apparently.
Taylor also started her post-race interview, in the mixed zone, behind the finish line, with specific suggestions she had for how Ironman could improve the event — which included moving the pre-race press conference inside so it’s not sweltering. And sometimes Taylor has a point.
The post-finish-line mixed zone didn’t work as well as I think they were hoping it would, probably because triathlon hasn’t quite figured out how to do media yet. We were supposed to wait there to grab athletes for interviews after they finally left the finish line, but so many of the athletes are messed up and need medical that you don’t want to take too long and Ironman told us all to do interviews together (ie. all stick mics in one person’s face at the same time), which is how these things work at bigger events. But it, then, led to 10 mics in one athlete’s face, who really just wanted get some water and dry clothes. And, of course, because it’s still triathlon, which is still relatively small, some outlets still ignore all of that and just grab the athletes sitting around the hotel to feel like they got quotes that were different and exclusive.
Ironman also moved the pro athlete area out of the pool and into the restaurant, which is bigger and has AC, but no more pool-side or beach interviews.
A lot of the Ironman operational back-end was tightened up. It was much much easier to get across the finish line to the media or VIP zone.
Plus, there was a security guard at the hotel entrance stopping regular AG athletes, who weren’t staying in the hotel, from using the lobby to sit down or hang out.
However, I made the mistake of trying to get from the hotel, behind the transition, out and across the start area right after the pros started and when all the age-groupers were lining up — and I have never thought I might have a full-on crowd panic attack before.
Dr. Matt, in third, said he’s flying from here to L.A. on Wednesday to present a paper at a medical conference.
He went back and forth with Gregory Barnaby, in 4th, a few times on the run. Sometimes passes stick and sometimes, here in Kona, they don’t.
Vince said it broke his heart to pass Magnus Ditlev walking — because everyone universally agrees that Magnus is the nicest guy in triathlon — but “business is business and cash is king.”
Pierre Le Corre, in 5th, said he almost quit triathlon in 2024.
Gustav Iden, who so nearly caught Vince with 2km to go, then started to fade and had to barely hold on that last mile. But he just seemed so happy to be back after the last few years, and to come back from nine minutes down at the start of the run.
Gustav, Matt, and Julie all got three-minute penalties.
It made me laugh a little how many pros kept saying the AG drafting was so bad. Do they just not remember how bad it’s always been here during the combined one-day race?
Sam Long held his own hot tub press conference for 6th. And kudos to him.
Patrick Lange went back out to volunteer at the aid station.
Gustav Iden and Laura Philipp won the IM Pro Series and were handed giant novelty checks.
Here’s the bike count — with Canyon on top.
And one of the few bike launches, the new Pinarello — which Casper would have ridden if he hadn’t crashed pre-race.
But even Triathlete’s gear roundup of new things this week mostly includes things that aren’t actually new this week.
As best I can tell there were 1,595 age-group men who finished and 41 pro men. And 573 age-group and 36 pro women. I think (but will confirm) that’s a pretty high DNF rate for here.
And, since all of you were nearly equally wrong, the winner of our podium predictions contest is: Taryn Spates! Stay tuned for prizes!
One last thing
Kat getting Paula moving again out on the Queen K.
I can’t believe I won the podium picks! What a thrill!!!
What a race! Totally insane!