Winning both the Ironman 70.3 and Ironman World Championships in the same year is one of triathlon’s rarest achievements. Before 2026, only two women had accomplished the prestigious double: Leanda Cave (2012) and Daniela Ryf (2015, 2017, and 2018).

Taylor Knibb has now joined that exclusive club as its third member.

But here’s where Knibb’s season becomes something else entirely.

Alongside those two world titles, Knibb won a short-course World Cup race, the only T100 event she contested on the Gold Coast, and the US national time trial (TT) championship. She also finished 13th at the UCI Road World Championships in the individual time trial, sandwiched between her world championship victories in Nice and Kona!

From the explosive speed of short-course triathlon to the endurance demands of an Ironman, with a national cycling title thrown in for good measure, Knibb has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to excel across vastly different racing formats.

Has any triathlete ever assembled such a diverse collection of victories in a single season?

We’d venture to say this may be the most remarkable display of versatility the sport has ever seen.

As Gwen Van Lingen put it, “Un-fucking-believable, winning those two feats so close together, you are a generational athlete.”

The Road Back to Kona

“Did you have a feeling when you landed in Kona that you could win this year?” we asked to open the interview.

“When I landed?!” Knibb responded with a laugh. “My Mom and I went straight to Safeway when we landed, and you probably saw the video, it was circulating on Instagram, where she asked me, ‘Is this where you went down last season?’”

Not exactly the reminder Knibb needed!

After coming agonizingly close to winning Kona in 2025, only to DNF in the closing miles, Knibb was left with genuine concerns about the potential long-term effects of her heat-related collapse.

“It was like a series of ‘firsts’ in terms of regaining confidence,” Knibb explained, reflecting on the past twelve months.

Her second-place finish at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Marbella last fall was the first step. It marked her return to racing at the highest level, and she acknowledged that second place was probably to be expected given how little training she had managed between Kona and Marbella.

Ironman Texas was the next milestone, marking her first completed full-distance race since Kona. “I called Dan [Lorang] at the finish there to let him know I finished,” she recalled.

Her runner-up finish in Texas also secured her qualification for Kona, freeing her to turn her attention to short-course racing. She went on to compete in Alghero, Tiszaújváros, Edmonton, and London, collecting valuable points toward her LA 2028 qualification, and securing her first World Cup win along the way.

“I had actually forgotten my anxieties about finishing in Kona as the final milestone to really get past last year!” she said.

Knibb also made a very valid point about the demands of Kona. As she put it, ask a group of elite marathon runners how they’d feel about tackling that hilly marathon course, in that heat, starting at noon, and you’d probably get quite an “outburst”!

And yet, in triathlon, we not only accept these conditions, but have arguably come to revere them as part of what makes Kona so iconic.

A World Title, and a Moment of Disbelief

Fast-forward to race day, and we wanted to know what was going through Knibb’s mind in those closing kilometres. Did she know Solveig Løvseth had collapsed? And how did it feel to finally realize her childhood dream of winning the Ironman World Championship?

For the full women’s race recap, see this companion article.

“Where did Solveig go down compared to you the previous year?” we asked.

“Oh, she got much, much further than me,” Knibb replied. Løvseth had made it inside the final kilometre before faltering and lying down on the pavement.

“Did people on course tell you what had happened, that the win was yours?”

“Well, I was running down Palani and throwing up again. I’d already thrown up with 12km to go, and someone told me Solveig was ‘stumbling’ and that it was my race. I thought, do you see what’s happening right now? I actually cannot control the vomit coming out of me! What world are we in that I’m suddenly going to turn this around and run a three-minute kilometre? Like, this is not the case. I don’t think today, thank you.”

Someone later told Knibb that Løvseth was literally down. And when she ran past and saw for herself what had happened, she knew the world title was hers.

We wanted to know what it felt like to zip up her suit, turn onto the iconic Ali’i Drive, and prepare to cross the finish line as the Ironman World Champion.

“It was surreal,” she said simply.

It was a sentiment that echoed her immediate post-race interview, where she struggled for words before saying, “I’m stunned.”

But as the enormity of the victory began to sink in, Knibb found herself wrestling with another emotion.

“It was a little bittersweet because of how it happened…there [was] a little bit of guilt. There has to be a little bit of guilt, like, someone’s race fell apart for this to happen. But then Mark Matthews said it wasn’t karma, because karma would imply that Solveig and I were bad people, but that it was almost like a balancing of the universe in terms of what happened.”

Knibb said that perspective helped her, even if the circumstances were almost impossible to believe. “I couldn’t have scripted that!”

And perhaps her words at the finish line captured it best: “Solveig and I need to stop doing this!”

The Team Behind the Win

When asked about the people who support her, Knibb lit up with gratitude.

“Allen [Lim] of Skratch produced 415 iterations of a gel just for me to finally find one that works!” she said emphatically. “Not only that, but he actually made it on the Island.”

Which takes us back to our brief post-race interview with Knibb in Kona, where she gleefully shared that this was the first time she hadn’t “shit herself” during an Ironman. In our more recent conversation, she added that a little vomiting was “a significant improvement.”

For Knibb, the lengths to which her team and partners have gone to address the challenges she’s faced has left her feeling genuinely cared for.

“There’s also Lawrence and Gwen. They do more for me than I can explain. And Matt Bottrill [aerodynamics]. And Julie Dibens [swimming]. And many others.”

And then, of course, there’s her coach, Dan Lorang, whose absence from Kona this year became a source of considerable amusement.

“We ran into Dan here in Kona last year. He must have been sad to miss your huge win this year?” we asked.

Immediate laughter.

“Yeah, that’s an interesting one. Poor Dan. I joke with him that he’s bad luck. Right when his plane touched down in Paris, I started crashing [during the Olympic individual time trial on rain-slicked roads]. Then he left for an altitude camp, and I did well in the mixed relay [securing second in a sprint to the line, almost earning the win for the USA].”

“And last year in Kona, well, we all know what happened.”

“Pre-race, Dan said to me it’s a lose-lose for him. Either I win while he’s not there, which would confirm he can never come,” she said with a laugh, “or I don’t, which means I don’t win.”

“So, what’s the resolution?”

“Well, I told him he can come to a low-pressure race, and if things go well, we can build from there.”

Following the Excitement

After a season that has taken her from short-course racing to the top of the Ironman World Championship podium, what’s next for Taylor Knibb?

Interestingly, another appearance in Kona wasn’t necessarily in her plans.

“When I thought I was coming second [in Kona], I knew I wouldn’t be racing in 2027,” she explained.

A runner-up finish would have meant qualifying again through another Ironman, something that would have conflicted too much with her other racing goals. But with the win came automatic qualification, making a return to defend her title a much more realistic possibility.

Still, Knibb isn’t rushing to map out next season.

She shared something a close friend has always encouraged: to follow the excitement. And excitement, she explained, isn’t static. Nor is it something you can manufacture.

What genuinely excites her changes, and she was candid that 2027 remains very much to be determined.

We can imagine Olympic qualification points and a Kona title defence featuring somewhere in the mix. As she shared when asked about the future, “I would love to go back to the Olympics and have an individual race that I’m really happy with… [And] I also love Kona.”

But there’s something refreshing about an athlete with so many accomplishments already to her name allowing herself the freedom to pursue whatever captures her interest next.

In her words: “If something can fit into my schedule, and it brings me joy, why not.”

Daniela Ryf on Taylor Knibb’s Historic World Championship Double

Few athletes understand the challenge of winning both the Ironman 70.3 and Ironman World Championships in the same year better than Daniela Ryf, who accomplished the double in 2015, 2017, and 2018.

“Winning both the 70.3 and IRONMAN World Championships in the same year is an incredible achievement, not just physically but also mentally. Combining the two is far from easy, especially with Nice adding two overseas flights and the challenge of preparing for both races.

“Taylor is an incredible athlete and such a hard worker. What impresses me most is how she handles the pressure. From the outside, it almost looks like she doesn’t feel it, but with Kona being such a big dream and coming so close last year, I’m sure she did. It reminds me a little of my own journey from 2014 to 2015.

“What I love is seeing how she genuinely enjoys racing and not letting the pressure take the joy away from her. It’s exciting to see her keep pushing the boundaries of our sport. I truly believe there are many more world titles to come for her.”

Taylor Knibb on What It Means to Be the Greatest

When Knibb was asked whether she’d like to be remembered as the greatest generational athlete of her time, her answer offered a different perspective on what greatness really means.

“I don’t think you ever want to be the greatest, because if you are the greatest, and no one better comes after you, you didn’t do your job well.”

For Knibb, part of being the best of your time is inspiring those who follow. “If someone can take [what you’ve done] and have a better career and absolutely demolish everything you did, that’s what you want.”