They Said It: What Solveig Løvseth and the Other Top-5 Women Thought After A Dramatic Day in Kona

Solveig Løvseth had a dream debut on the Big Island, winning the world title in 8:28:27. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Saturday saw a race for the ages in Kona, with not one, but two, late-race leaders (Lucy Charles-Barclay and Taylor Knibb) pushing themselves until they could not go any further. This opened the door for Norway’s Solveig Løvseth to run away with the win in her first time racing the IRONMAN World Championship. Løvseth and the other women from the top five were featured in the post-race press conference on Saturday, and they tried to give their thoughts on what’s going to go down as one of the wildest race finishes in IRONMAN history.

Lisa Perterer’s Strong Debut

Going into the race, many of the pro women singled out Austria’s Lisa Perterer as a dark horse who could steal a big result. She made the jump from WTCS racing to mid- and full-distance triathlon in the latter half of 2024, and she had three podiums in her three IRONMAN races as she worked toward her first time on the Big Island.

It turned out that Perterer was a good bet, as she managed to grab fifth in a very deep field, crossing the line in 8:48:08. After the race, she said the top-five result “meant a lot” to her.

“It was a very long season so far,” she said. “I couldn’t wish for more.”

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon.

Talking through the day, she said she was “surprised with the gap” she faced after the swim (she got out of the water in 55:41, more than six minutes back of the lead), but she made sure to stay focused on the task at hand.

“I just wanted to do my [own] race today,” Perterer said. “I think even if you don’t have your greatest day, you just need to stay focused and do your race.”

That patience paid off for her in the end, and when she hit Ali’i Drive, she was alone in fifth place. The result lifts her to third in the IRONMAN Pro Series — tremendous standing for her first full season of IRONMAN and 70.3 racing.

Hannah Berry Jumps to Fourth

In 2023, New Zealand’s Hannah Berry had a solid 11th-place finish in Kona. A year later in Nice, she improved by one spot, breaking into the top 10 despite getting a flat. This year saw Berry climb even higher in the rankings, firmly planting herself in the top five with a fourth-place finish in 8:46:25.

It was pointed out to Berry that this is the best result by a Kiwi woman at the IRONMAN worlds since 2007 when Joanna Lawn also finished in fourth.

“To have a result that is comparable to [Lawn’s] is incredible,” Berry said, calling Lawn a Kiwi legend of the sport.

The race was “brutal,” Berry said, but she noted that it did imrpove as the day progressed.

“I felt pretty bad starting the ride, but felt better at the end,” she said. “That’s a positive, but unusual.”

Hannah Berry crosses the line in fourth. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

On the run, she battled from behind to catch Perterer, who was just ahead of her for a long stretch of the marathon. Like Perterer, Berry said she was trying to focus on her own race and ignore what everyone else was doing. When she made the pass on the Austrian, Berry said she was “terrified” she was going to catch her again.

“I think you’ve just got to focus on yourself [in those moments],” she said. That worked out for her, and she closed the race out with a 3:04:32 marathon (the sixth-fastest of the day) to finish a career-best fourth at the IRONMAN world champs.

Third Again for Laura Philipp

Laura Philipp came into Kona as the defending IRONMAN world champion, but after the race on Saturday she said she never looked at it that way.

“I obviously won my title on a very different course [in Nice],” she said. “I came here knowing I wasn’t the defending champion on this island.”

She finished third in Kona two years ago, and for much of the day this time around it looked like she was going to have to settle for a result off the podium. She got off the bike and set off on the marathon a whopping 14 minutes back of the lead.

Despite the deficit and being forced to watch her “dreams … fading away” as the leaders ran to the win, Philipp persevered, determined to finish the race. She was in fifth place for much of the run, but then she started getting news about what was happening up the road.

A familiar sight as Philipp and Matthews ran side by side in yet another IRONMAN. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“I think I was on the highway again after the Energy Lab when people started to tell me ‘Now you’re fourth,’ [and then] ‘Now you’re third,'” she said. “But [I was thinking], ‘But I didn’t overtake anyone.'”

It was a confusing and unexpected result, but her commitment to finishing the race even though things weren’t going to plan led to her reaching another IRONMAN World Championship podium.

“What I’m proud of is I don’t have any regrets,” Philipp said.

Matthews Flies on the Run

Matthews got off the bike with Philipp, sitting 14 minutes behind the leaders. This was of course not great news as she entered T2, but after the race she acknowledged (albeit a little sarcastically) that it was “a fantastic experience” to make it to that point in the race, as two years ago she pulled out mid-ride.

“I am proud of my performance,” Matthews said. I’m really happy to finish strongly.”

She said didn’t feel she had much strength on the bike, so she sat back and had to let the other women in the group do most of the work. When she got to the run course and saw the massive deficit, she said she sort of shrugged and took it in stride.

“‘Well, I’m doing my best,'” she recalled thinking. “I stayed grounded in that.”

Matthews is embraced by her husband, Mark, after an incredible run course record. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Like everyone else on the course, Matthews’s final ranking was, of course, aided by the fact that Charles-Barclay and Knibb hit insurmountable walls on the run and had to pull out, but she still deserves immense credit for her second-place finish. She was flying on the run course, and despite being so far back after the ride, she very nearly ran her way to the world title.

She ran a new run course record of 2:47:23 to climb within 35 seconds of the win — one of the closest finishes between first and second in IRONMAN World Championship history.

More Norwegian Magic

Løvseth had an amazing race on Saturday. She got off the bike in third, and seeing as she was about six minutes back of Charles-Barclay and Knibb, she said she was quite content to take third in her debut at the world champs.

“When I was third off the bike I was thinking, ‘If I’m able to stay on this podium that’s great,'” she said.

With more of a focus on not getting caught rather than trying to do the catching, it came as a shock when chaos broke out up the road as first Charles-Barclay pulled out and then Knibb fell to the ground, unable to move another inch.

Løvseth won the race in unbelievable fashion. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“Obviously it’s heartbreaking to see someone pull out that way,” Løvseth said. She might have felt bad for her fallen competitors, but she wasn’t going to stop and think about their losses until she finished the task at hand.

She passed Knibb with a little over two miles to go, and she said she kept telling herself “don’t be the next person to sit on the side of the road.”

Matthews didn’t make it easy on Løvseth, pressuring right to the line.

“I was thinking, like, ‘Okay […] what pace can I run and not be overtaken, but try not to run much faster than that?'” she said. “I think if the run had been a couple [of kilometres] longer, she definitely would’ve caught me.”

When asked about the continued success of Norwegians at the IRONMAN World Championship (Løvseth followed in the footsteps of Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iden and Casper Stornes on Saturday, each of whom won the IRONMAN world crown the first time they raced the event), Løvseth didn’t know what to attribute it to.

“I’m starting to think it’s something […] I usually don’t believe in […] supernatural stuff, but now I think something is going on here,” she said with a laugh. “It’s just the world that has decided that I was going to win today.”

Whether it was thanks to divine intervention, a miraculous stroke of luck, or simply a right-place-right-time sort of scenario, Løvseth delivered one of the most exciting finishes ever at the IRONMAN World Championship, and she is going home as yet another Norwegian world champion.

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