Ladies Day in Taupo: Recapping the Pro Women’s Race in Words and Pictures

Kevin Mackinnon

December 14, 2024

All photos by Kevin Mackinnon

The energy here in Taupo for the first IRONMAN World Championship event in New Zealand has been pretty special, but you really got a feeling of how unique this race was going to be when the “waka,” which was made up of “wahine” (women), kicked off the opening ceremonies for today’s race.

Here’s how the folks at IRONMAN described it:

When the waka arrives on the beach, Ngāti Tūwharetoa wāhine will emulate the mahi (strength) of the tāne (men) and challenge the female athletes to push themselves beyond their normal boundaries. With their kahui maunga (chiefly mountains) at their backs, their moana (inland sea) at their feet and Aotearoa’s most significant awa to their side (Waikato River), they will uphold the traditions of their forefathers and mothers in a demonstration of mana whenua (custodianship) and aroha through a demonstration of Ahai (rakau/paddle moves), wero (challenge), and haka.

For a blow-by-blow recap of today’s race, make sure to check out Ryan Heisler’s excellent piece posted earlier:

Here’s a look at the day from my perspective behind the camera:

Triathlon fans who were near transition early got another glimpse of how the day was going to go based on defending champ Taylor Knibb’s mood. Pre-race nerves? Not here.

Knibb might have been laughing early, but once the horn went off, she was all business.

She was a bit behind heading into the water …

… But powered out to the lead over the first few hundred meters. “Good luck with your goggle choice,” she warned the men after the race, referring to her difficulties navigating the first turn buoy.

Lotte Wilms would lead the women out of the water …

… While Hannah Berry led the chase pack that included Kat Matthews. The Kiwi was 47 seconds behind Wilms coming out of Lake Taupo. After the race Matthews said that a good swim was critical for her success on the day.

Once out on the bike, there was simply no touching Knibb, who has dominated the bike at every long-distance race she’s entered this year. During the post-race press conference, Knibb said that she would have liked to have been able to get some splits so she would know “where I am” during the bike.

“Off the front,” Ashleigh Gentle said, generating a laugh from the crowd.

… And Imogen Simmonds were able to create their own tiny chase group, but still ended up almost five minutes behind Knibb into T2.

“I am going to make the bike work for me,” Simmonds said after the race. “90 km through the countryside was beautiful. I hope they got some good shots out on the course.”

(I’ll leave it to her to decide if I did.)

This shot of Nikki Bartlett would hopefully satisfy Simmonds.

The second chase group, that included speedy runners Ashleigh Gentle and Julie Derron (and is being led here by Paula Findlay) ended up over eight minutes behind starting the run.

Derron would charge out onto the run course.

“On the run I went for the podium, but the wheels came off,” she said after the race. (Keep going for proof of how much the “wheels came off.”)

After feeling that she’d been “snubbed” by Hayden Wilde at Thursday’s press conference when he predicted that either Julie Derron or Ashleigh Gentle would post the day’s fastest run split, it was Matthews who would move into second and put together the 2nd fastest run of the day. Her 1:15:34 split was almost a minute faster than Gentle, and …

… 38-seconds faster than Tamara Jewett, who had the second-fastest run of the day, which was enough to move her to ninth.

Hannah Berry and Laura Madsen run together early on in the run.

“There wasn’t a quiet moment on the run course,” Imogen Simmonds said after the race. “And, although advertised as flat, I think there was only 1 km of flat on the course.”

In the end, there was no touching Knibb, who even managed a stop at a port-o-potty on her way to a 75-second win.

When asked what it means to have won three 70.3 world titles on three different continents on three different courses, Knibb was her usual analytic self:

“I’m not sure how different they were,” she said at the press conference. “They were all wetsuit swims, with challenging bikes and not-flat runs. Thank you, IRONMAN, for giving us tough courses.”

Second at this championship last year, second at the IRONMAN World Championship in St. George in 2022, second at this year’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice … but first in the IRONMAN Pro Series for Kat Matthews.

And, as usual, Matthews was all class as she celebrated the day of racing with Knibb at the finish line.

In a bit of a reversal from the T100 final in Dubai, it was Gentle who paced things perfectly to move her way to the podium, running her way from sixth in T2 to third.

“I did the first transition like it was an Olympic distance and paid for it,” Gentle said after the race. “I tried to pace (the run) a bit better, and felt a lot of support from the sidelines. This event has encapsulated the spirit of triathlon.”