When Lucy Charles-Barclay crossed the finish line to win the London T100, the crowd saw triumph. They saw celebration, a return to dominance, and a hometown hero reclaiming her place at the top of the sport.
What they didn’t see were the weeks, the months – even the years – that led to that moment: the setbacks, the rebuilds, and the quiet consistency of someone doing the hard work outside of the spotlight. What they didn’t see was the slow, deliberate climb back – the choice to keep going, day after day, and to keep believing.
Because that finish line didn’t belong only to the version of Lucy who sprinted across it, arms raised, clasping the banner. It belonged to every version of her who showed up along the way to make it possible.
Defeat Has Never Been an Option
For Lucy Charles-Barclay, the path forward has never been a straight line. It has twisted through disappointment and heartbreak, but never once has it included surrender.
When she narrowly missed out on qualifying for her hometown London Olympics in open-water swimming in 2012, many assumed it would mark the end of her elite sporting career. But Lucy Charles-Barclay wasn’t built to stop at a closed door. Within a year, she had shifted her focus entirely, setting her sights on new goals and training for her first Ironman.
It was not just a new challenge. It was a reset – and a return to joy.
“I had lost the love for swimming,” Lucy reflected in a past interview. “When the love isn’t there, it’s impossible to continue at that level. I signed up to my first Ironman as a challenge, to motivate me, refocus and reignite my love for sport… After crossing the finish line, I was hooked.”
That love for her craft – quiet, steady, and still very much alive today – has been the foundation of every comeback since.
Triathlon hasn’t always been kind to Charles-Barclay. It has demanded more from her than most athletes will ever be asked to give. But each time it’s broken her down, she’s rebuilt stronger.
You don’t fight for a sport this hard unless you care about it more than anyone understands.
The Cost of the Crown
The highs of Lucy Charles-Barclay’s triathlon career have been some of the sport’s brightest, but almost every one of them has come on the heels of injury.
In March 2022, a serious hip fracture forced her off the start line. Specialists advised her to rule out racing for the rest of the season and even raised the possibility that her career could be over. It was a rare moment where it seemed like the sport might be moving on without her. On crutches, Lucy was told she would need to re-learn how to walk before she could even think about running again.
But run again she did. Defying expectations, she returned in August to win the Long Distance World Title in Samorin, then followed it up with her fourth runner-up finish in Kona just two months later, a remarkable comeback by any measure.
And in 2023, she went one step further. Despite managing both a metatarsal stress fracture and a stubborn Achilles issue in the lead-up, Charles-Barclay finally turned her ultimate dream into reality. With a tape-to-tape victory at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, she claimed the crown that had eluded her in four prior attempts, crossing the finish line with a new course record time of 8:24:31.
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It was the kind of redemption arc athletes dream of. But the win came at a cost.
Charles-Barclay had carried her lingering Achilles issue into Kona, and within the opening kilometres of the marathon, she knew something wasn’t right – not just with her Achilles, but with her calf.
“I was like: ‘Oh my god, have I torn it?’” she recalled in a previous interview. “It just felt locked and cramped. And I was like: ‘How am I going to get through this? Is it going to hold out?’” But she didn’t slow down. “It’s pain, but it’s relative,” she said. “So I [kept] going and pray[ed] that it [was] going to hold and not completely rupture.”
Standing atop the podium in Kona meant everything. But when the cheers faded and the lights dimmed, Lucy found herself, once again, back in rehab. Back in the quiet. Back in the in-between.
“It’s not easy,” she shared, reflecting on the emotional whiplash of success followed by setback. “After a big result, going straight into rehab can feel confusing.”
“There’s a quiet moment after the crowds go home where it’s just you, the ice, and [coming up with] a plan,” she continued. “Accepting that highs and lows are both part of sport helped me reset sooner. I allow myself to feel disappointed for a short while, then I move forward. That steadiness has served me well when things get challenging late in races, because I have already practiced staying calm when the script changes.”
The lingering effects of that torn calf followed her into 2024. Despite promising early-season form with two T100 podiums and a win at Ironman France Nice, she was forced to withdraw mid-run from the London T100 with a flare-up of the same issue – and later, from the Ironman World Championship in Nice.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been here. But if there’s one thing Lucy Charles-Barclay has shown the sport, again and again, it’s that the quiet moments between victories often matter most. Because it’s in those in-between spaces that the real work happens. The real decisions. The ones that don’t show up on finish lines, but make them possible.
The Wisdom in Dubai
In late 2024, Lucy Charles-Barclay boarded a flight to Dubai. She was not there to compete. Still recovering and rebuilding, she arrived not as an athlete, but as a voice – to commentate, to cheer on her fellow athletes, and to stay close to a sport she has never once turned her back on, even when it has sidelined her.
I had the privilege of meeting her here, in the midst of my own injury. I had trained for the age-group race only to withdraw due to a low back disc tear and herniation. T100 kindly arranged a pro-to-AG mentorship session: 30 minutes to talk recovery, belief, and the often-overlooked spaces in between.
They couldn’t have chosen someone whose words would carry more weight. Not just because Lucy had come back from injury before, but because, when we spoke, she was in it. Still navigating the slow rebuild. Still unsure if her body would let her return to the top. There was no tidy resolution, no lesson wrapped in a bow. Her words came from the murky middle – that uncertain, unglamorous space where belief is harder to hold. And that’s exactly what made them resonate.
It was here in Dubai that Lucy first shared a phrase that had become somewhat of a compass during her recovery: win the day.
It began in rehab, she explained, when big goals felt too far away to touch. “Set realistic targets and win the day. Listen to your body and to the experts you trust. Celebrate small progress. It keeps you moving forward when big leaps are not possible. Write the win down, even if it is tiny; it helps you see the path building under your feet.”
Some mornings, she admitted, the weight of it all felt heavy. But ticking off one good habit, then another, slowly brought the joy back.
The idea wasn’t complicated, and that’s what made it powerful. “Keep it simple and achievable,” she said. “Choose one or two things you can execute today and repeat that rhythm. Over time, those small wins add up.”
And in that moment – in the middle of a rebuild that had no guaranteed ending – you could feel it. The quiet steadiness. The belief not yet rewarded, but still unwavering.
It would have been easy to see Lucy as a sidelined champion in Dubai. But when you listened – really listened – it was clear she wasn’t standing still. She was quietly, deliberately building.
And when I asked what she was building toward, she didn’t hesitate: “Kona 2025. Defend the crown.”
2025 and a T100 Triumph
She didn’t rush. Into the early months of 2025, Lucy Charles-Barclay built back slowly and with intent.
“The decision to pause racing [in 2024] gave me a proper base,” she explained. “We have been adding layers quietly since then.”
One of the foundational shifts came in identifying and managing her coeliac diagnosis – something Lucy has credited in her YouTube videos with helping her train more consistently and stay injury-free.
Together, these layers began to hold. A podium in Singapore. A win in Lanzarote. Another at Eagleman. And a fourth place in Vancouver. The results were strong, but more importantly, she wasn’t chasing peak form too early. She was practising what she always preaches: patient decisions, done well.
At this level, threading the needle between injury and peak performance is more than a physical balance, it’s an emotional one too. It requires restraint when ambition says go, and trust in a process that’s bigger than the immediate future.
“[I’ve been feeling] in a good place, grateful to be healthy, and there is still room to grow across the rest of the season,” Lucy shared. “Confidence for me comes from ordinary days done well, and there have been a lot of ordinary days done well this year.”
And those ordinary days stacked up into something special in London. It wasn’t just Lucy’s first T100 win – it came against what was widely regarded as the deepest women’s T100 field ever assembled, in what commentators hailed as “the most nail-biting finish in the history of women’s T100 racing.” The victory wasn’t just a milestone; it was a powerful statement. And with Kona just two months away, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
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The Strength Beneath the Surface
Kona has always been the dream. And this time, Lucy Charles-Barclay will arrive on the Big Island in 2025 with something she has never had before: a full, healthy build.
“Kona was the dream from the start,” Lucy says. “Crossing the line [first] in 2023 meant a lot, especially given the circumstances. Now I’m curious about what a full, healthy build can produce on that course.”
“The ‘why’ is similar – I love the work and the challenge – but there is a quiet goal to see my best version in Kona, whatever the result.”
As six-time Kona champion Mark Allen recently wrote: “What I respect most about Lucy is she’s fearless. No fear about leading from the front. No fear of evolving and changing. And no fear of showing her huge heart.”
That courage – to evolve, to endure, to believe again – is what has brought her here.
“If you hold onto good routines and patient decisions, you will get back to where you want to be,” Lucy says. “Surround yourself with the people who lift you up, ask for help when you need it, and remember that a comeback is made of many quiet days that nobody sees.”
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Sources and Acknowledgements: Select quotes from Lucy Charles-Barclay were sourced from past public interviews and are noted as such. All other quotes were obtained in original conversation with the athlete for this feature.
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