We Noticed: Alex Yee Runs 2:06 Marathon, Georgia Taylor-Brown Sets 70.3 World Best and More IRONMAN Results Around the Globe

Georgia Taylor-Brown has had quite the end to her season, including a fourth-place finish at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship (above). Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

The 2025 race season is coming to a close, but pros are still squeezing in a final few rips before the end of the year. In Spain on Sunday, Olympic triathlon gold medallist Alex Yee raced the Valencia Marathon, finishing seventh overall in an incredible time of 2:06:38. This is a PB of more than four minutes, as well as the second-fastest time ever run by a Brit.

Another British athlete was in action this weekend, but in a middle-distance triathlon rather than a standard marathon. Georgia Taylor-Brown won IRONMAN 70.3 Bahrain in 3:51:19, setting a new world best time at the distance. Her partner, France’s Vincent Luis, also took the win in Bahrain.

Finally, there were two more big races on the IRONMAN and 70.3 circuits this weekend, with IRONMAN Western Australia and 70.3 La Quinta both taking place on Sunday. We’ll take a closer look at all of these results in today’s edition of We Noticed.

Yee’s Year of Running

After winning the Olympic and World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) titles last year, Yee decided to take a season away from triathlon to focus solely on running. He did race a couple of triathlon races this year (he won Supertri Toronto and was ninth a the sprint at WTCS French Riviera), but other than that, he has been a single-sport athlete for the rest of 2025.

Yee has raced five running events this year, and he set a PB in each of them. He kicked his season off with a 28:07 showing at a 10K road race in Valencia in January. A few months later, he made his marathon debut in London, finishing 14th in 2:11:08.

In August, he travelled to Belgium to compete on the track, and he walked away with a 5,000m best of 13:13.89. In October, he returned to Valencia and set a personal half-marathon record of 1:01:29, and on Sunday he was back in the Spanish city once more for his stellar 2:06:38 marathon.

Yee has had a phenomenal year off from triathlon, recording five running PBs in as many races. Photo: Wagner Araujo/World Triathlon

Yee is now second on the all-time marathon list in Great Britain, with only running legend Mo Farah ahead of him. Farah owns a lifetime best and national record of 2:05:11, which he ran in Chicago in 2018. He ran quicker than Yee’s 2:06:38 result on two other occasions, but that’s it.

Yee has said his plan is to refocus on triathlon in his build to the Los Angeles Olympics, but he has a bright future in marathon running if he wants it. He will be 30 after LA — only just entering his prime as a marathoner (Farah didn’t run his national record until he was 35). It will by no means be easy to climb into the 2:05s or higher, but after just a year of dedicated run training, Yee is already far above so many other athletes, so it’s hard to judge where his ceiling in the sport might be if he goes all in as a runner.

Taylor-Brown’s New Record

Taylor-Brown has had quite the season (especially since this is a “year off” of racing for her) — particularly in the last month. She finished fourth at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, Spain, in November, followed that up with another fourth-place result at T100 Dubai a week later and won the Laguna Phuket Triathlon a week after that.

She gave herself a two-week break after Phuket, then Taylor-Brown hammered out a remarkable 3:51:19 in Bahrain. She improved on her winning time in Bahrain last year, when she crossed the line in 3:56:56. Her most recent attack on the Middle Eastern race course was just the third 70.3 of her career, and although her two previous cracks at the distance showed that she is pretty good at it, her world-best time on Friday proved she could be a threat to win any race she enters in the future.

Taylor-Brown will get back to WTCS racing in 2026 as she works toward the LA Olympics. Photo: Darren Wheeler – That Cameraman/SuperLeague

Taylor-Brown swam a 25:17 split to start the day, then followed it up with the fastest ride (2:06:48) and race-best run (1:16:11) to stop the clock in record time. Her 3:51 result shattered Taylor Knibb’s previous world-best of 3:53:02 from her World Championship-winning performance in Lahti, Finland, in 2023.

Like her compatriot Yee, this season has been a bit of a sabbatical from short-course racing for Taylor-Brown, as she also intends to get back to prep for LA next season. However, also like Yee, if Taylor-Brown decides to give this type of racing a real shot down the line, she could become one of the top contenders on the pro circuit.

Luis Wins Again

After dual victories in Bahrain in 2024, Luis and Taylor-Brown had another relationship goals kind of moment in the Middle East, as they both took the wins on Friday. Luis hasn’t been as busy as his partner over the past month, but he hasn’t been slacking, either. He finished ninth at the 70.3 worlds, and like Taylor-Brown, he raced T100 Dubai, where he finished fifth.

He had a three-week break (opting not to race in Thailand with Taylor-Brown) before lining up in Bahrain. He had the fastest swim split (posting a time of 21:59), the third-best ride of the day (1:55:48) and the top run among the pro men (1:08:33) to cross the line in 3:29:08.

After an injury he suffered at Challenge Roth in July, Luis has had a strong back half to the 2025 season. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Luis’s win was far from easy, as he and Portugal’s Vasco Vilaça were neck and neck for much of the race. Vilaca was only a couple of seconds behind Luis in the water, and then they had identical splits on the bike.

After a speedy transition in T2, Luis put some space between himself and Vilaça, but those few seconds ultimately didn’t matter all that much, as Luis’s half-marathon split was over a minute and a half quicker than that of the Portuguese athlete. Vilaça finished in second place in a final time of 3:31:19. The win is the third straight in Bahrain for Luis.

Western Australia Wraps Up IRONMAN Season

The race in Western Australia marked the last full-distance event of the year on the IRONMAN calendar, and it doubled as the Asia-Pacific Championship. Lotte Wilms of the Netherlands took a decisive win in the women’s race, posting a final time of 8:30:50 and beating second place by 14 minutes on the dot. She had the fastest swim of the day in 48:09 and followed that up with the best bike among the pro women, reaching T2 after 4:29:23 of riding.

Wilms got her lone win in 2025 at IRONMAN Western Australia on Sunday. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Wilms wrapped up the race with a 3:07:06 marathon to take the win over Great Britain’s Katie Curran (second place in 8:44:50) and France’s Anne-Sophie Pierre (third in 8:46:48).

On the men’s side of things, Britain’s Cameron Main won the Asia-Pacific title in the first IRONMAN of his career. Like Wilms, he had the best swim of the day, climbing out of the water in 46:15. He recorded a 4:03:29 bike split, then flew to the line with a race-best 2:43:57 marathon. Main won the race in a final time of 7:38:26, beating Australia’s Caleb Noble (second in 7:42:43) and Japan’s Jumpei Furuya (third in 7:43:04) to the line.

Long and Kasper Win 70.3 La Quinta

On the other side of the world in California, more top pros competed at 70.3 La Quinta, with Americans Sam Long and Kristen Kasper taking home the titles. Kasper had a great showing, exiting the water in first in 24:14, riding a solid bike split of 2:17:32 and closing out the day with a 1:19:43 half-marathon to finish in a final time of 4:06:08. Second went to Canada’s Amelie Kretz in 4:07:37, and Germany’s Anna Buttner rounded out the podium in 4:08:20.

On the men’s side of things, Long beat his longtime friend Lionel Sanders of Canada. Sunday’s race marked a return to racing for Sanders after a long hiatus, but Long spoiled the comeback thanks to a 1:10:38 half-marathon. Long’s final time was 3:36:26, edging out Sanders by close to three minutes. Sanders finished in second in 3:39:16, while his fellow Canadian Jackson Laundry placed third in 3:39:39.

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