Laura Philipp achieved third place in a highly dramatic race at the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii.
However, the 38-year-old professional triathlete from Heidelberg missed out on defending her title as she had hoped for, after finishing first in Nice a year ago after 3.86 kilometers of swimming, 180.2 kilometers of cycling and 42.2 kilometers of running.
Under the most difficult conditions with extreme heat and extremely high humidity after the overnight rain, Laura Philipp lost touch with the leaders on the bike course. In the final marathon she was able to close the gap to the podium places with a consistently strong performance.
Winner of 2023 has to give up
But she also benefited from the fact that the 2023 Hawaii winner, Lucy Charles-Barclay from Great Britain, and Taylor Knibb from the USA had to give up, staggering and completely exhausted. Laura Philipp took fourth place at the finish in Kailua-Kona in 2019 and 2022, and she came third in 2023.
The 26-year-old Norwegian Solveig Løvseth secured victory in what is currently the last edition of the race for women only in Hawaii ahead of the 34-year-old Brit Kat Matthews. A Norwegian, Casper Stornes, also won the men’s event last month. Next year, men and women will start together again in Hawaii.