Taylor Knibb Exorcises the Kona Demons, Wins 2026 IRONMAN World Championship

Taylor Knibb is the 2026 IRONMAN World Champion, taking the lead in the final kilometer, passing a collapsed defending champion Solveig Løvseth. Knibb had taken the lead early on in the bike, trading the lead with Lucy Charles-Barclay. The two traded the lead at least five times down the Queen K and out to Hawi. Knibb led by 15 seconds at 45 miles and by 54 seconds at the turnaround, but Charles-Barclay pulled her back each time, sitting just outside the 20-meter draft zone. Knibb finally broke the elastic late in the ride, stretching her lead from 57 seconds at 86 miles to 2:32 with 20K to go. She was first into T2 with a 4:40:07 split Løvseth, meanwhile, started a relentless charge towards the lead in the final third of the bike course, using the headwinds over those miles to close a minute of the gap to Taylor Knibb and Lucy Charles-Barclay. She started the marathon still almost five minutes down. Once she started running, though, she was patient but relentless. Back through town on Ali’i Drive she was the fastest of the front three at 6:23 per mile, trimming the gap to 3:46. Just before mile 10 she
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