| (Photo: Donald Miralle/IRONMAN)
In 1978, the first-ever Ironman race was held in Hawaii with 15 men competing to see who could finish this seemingly impossible endurance event. Judy Collins, who founded the race with her husband, said she didn't toe the start line that day because she'd been sick and didn't want her performance to make anyone think women couldn't finish this thing. It wasn't until the next year, that the first woman, Lyn Lemaire, completed the 140.8 miles.
In 1982, college student Julie Moss crawled across the finish line on national TV and catapulted the race into the popular imagination.
Since then, there has been a co-ed championship race in Kona, Hawaii each October where both men and women raced for their Ironman world titles. While winners have long received equal prize money, women have always made up a much smaller percentage of championship spots (around 26-28% of athletes in pre-COVID years) and were often overshadowed by the men's race in media coverage. Additionally, with professional & amateur men mixed into the field, they frequently impacted the women's race.
Last year, for the first-time ever, there was a separate women's only race day on Thursday and a men's race day on Saturday. But, double the number of athletes was too much for the small island town — which said it could no longer host two days of racing.
The solution: This year the men raced in Nice, France and the women headed to Kona, Hawaii. They'll switch locations next year—and then repeat for the following two years.
Records everywhere!
All of that led to a one-of-a-kind mass participation all-women's championship race this year — with 2,097 female athletes on the start line. It was a completely unique, 100% women's vibe.
After taking second four times, Lucy Charles-Barclay finally won the title in the most competitive race ever. She had to set a course record to do so — also becoming only the second woman to ever lead from start to finish. And she held off a hard-charging Anne Haug, who ran a run course record of 2:48:23 for the marathon. American Taylor Knibb, the two-time half-Ironman world champion, made her debut at this distance (which included running her first marathon ever!) and held onto 4th place. 16 professional women finished under 9 hours — a mind-blowing record number.
A record-setting 97.5% of the amateur women's field crossed the finish line under the 17 hour time-limit and, for the first time in the event's history, all athletes who entered the water made the swim time cut-off of 2 hours & 20 minutes.
Adrienne Bunn (who was also the youngest finisher at 18 years old), Lisa Cloutier, and Marlyne Stutzman became the first known female athletes with autism to complete the Ironman World Championship.
Melanie McQuaid was the first 50-year-old to race in the women's professional field (finishing in 10:04). And pro runner Lucy Bartholomew became only the second woman to race both UTMB and Kona in the same year.
And coverage of the race has already attracted 200,000 more viewers than the men's race did last month.
It was a historic, unique, special record-setting world championship event!
LISTEN: Feisty's Watch the Women campaign was live with daily podcasts from the island — including our post-race analysis show.
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