The 25-year-old American dominated the race in Finland to retain her title, as GB’s Matthews charged through for a runner-up spot with compatriot Emma Pallant-Browne in fourth <\/p>
Taylor Knibb<\/a> continued her rich vein of form to retain the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Finland with an accomplished front-running performance. The American took the tape in 3:53:02 in the southern Finnish city of Lahti ahead of Britain\u2019s Kat Matthews<\/a>, <\/strong>with\u00a0Switzerland\u2019s Imogen Simmonds and GB\u2019s Emma Pallant-Browne<\/a><\/strong> in fourth.<\/p>\n It meant Knibb backed up her victory in St George last year where she also dominated with a winning margin of 5min, and made her only the second woman to successfully defend the 70.3 title following five-time winner Daniela Ryf<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Matthews showed she is in the form to have a solid crack at the Ironman World Championshp in Hawaii in October, having missed the event last year following a horrific bike crash in Texas. Matthews second place matched her result in the delayed 2021 Ironman worlds in St George last May and was largely thanks to a race-best 1:16:38 half-marathon.<\/p>\n Knibb was the favourite to take the title following her win in the PTO US Open in Milwaukee<\/a><\/strong> and securing the first Olympic qualification spot on the US team at the Paris test event<\/a><\/strong> last weekend.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old\u2019s chances were even stronger with Ashleigh Gentle<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 who finished second to Knibb in Milwaukee and backed it up by winning the PTO Asian Open<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 choosing to return home to Australia after racing in Singapore.<\/p>\n As the defending champion, Knibb chose to take a spot on the far end of the pontoon and it paid immediate dividends as she showed the fastest take-out speed to take an early advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n Britain\u2019s Lucy Buckingham, long renowned as one of the fastest swimmers in triathlon, quickly moved on to the American\u2019s toes and took the lead within a few hundred metres.<\/span><\/p>\n From there the 1.2-mile wetsuit swim quickly lined out with Buckingham and Knibb opening a gap with only Brazil\u2019s Pamela Oliveira, Germany\u2019s Caroline Pohle and Switzerland\u2019s Simmonds staying in touch, and India Lee<\/a><\/strong> just off the leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n Buckingham was first into T1 in 24:43 followed by the other four women and then Lee, with Australia\u2019s Ellie Salthouse leading a big chase pack including pre-race favourites Ryf, Holly Lawrence<\/a><\/strong>, Matthews, Paula Findlay<\/a><\/strong>, Jewett and Pallant-Browne around 80sec back.<\/span><\/p>\n Behind them World Triathlon long distance champion Marjolaine Pierre was 2min behind Buckingham, and Germany\u2019s Laura Philipp<\/span>\u00a0had 2min 40sec to make up from 23rd position.<\/span><\/p>\n Knibb took a few extra seconds to put socks on in transition, but from then on there was no holding back as she headed into the rolling countryside of Lahti, quickly forging her way to the front and started to apply pressure to the chasers.<\/p>\n Lee withdrew early on the bike and Buckingham picked up a drafting penalty trying to stay with Knibb, but the Brit found herself in good company in the penalty tent, with Salthouse, Lawrence and Jewett also having to stand down for various infractions in the first-half of the bike leg.<\/p>\n Knibb continued to extend her lead as she did when winning the title in 2022 in St George. Simmonds was alone in second place but the gap from the front back to the quartet of Matthews, Findlay, Ryf and Pallant-Browne had blown out to more than 3 \u00bd min.<\/p>\n A steep climb just before T2 provided a final sting to bike leg, but hardly posed a problem for Knibb as she rolled into transition with a 2:07 split and a gap of more than 2mins over Simmonds. Matthews led in the chasers over 5mins behind with Philipp nearly 7mins in arrears and still in with a chance of the podium.<\/p>\n The two-lap undulating run course incorporated the running track at the Lahti sports centre and there was no letting up by Knibb on the early miles, as only Matthews and Pallant-Browne kept pace as the pair tried to close down Simmonds for second place on the podium.<\/p>\n Ryf was dropping back through the field as Pierre and Germany\u2019s Anne Reischmann looked to cement their positions in the top 10.<\/p>\n Heading into lap two, Knibb was comfortably 4min clear of Simmonds, but the Swiss who finished fourth in Singapore last weekend and was on the podium in the 2019 Ironman 70.3 worlds in 2019, wasn\u2019t wilting either.<\/p>\n Matthews managed to break clear of Pallant-Browne midway through the half-marathon and then closed down Simmonds in the final miles to take second place. But there was no stopping Knibb, who despite a late toilet stop, could cruise to a second 70.3 world title.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old American dominated the race in Finland to retain her title, as GB’s Matthews charged through for a runner-up spot with compatriot Emma Pallant-Browne in fourth <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":25115,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second.jpg",1500,1000,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second.jpg",1500,1000,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2023\/08\/taylor-knibb-wins-ironman-70-3-worlds-as-kat-matthews-finishes-second.jpg",1500,1000,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The 25-year-old American dominated the race in Finland to retain her title, as GB's Matthews charged through for a runner-up spot with compatriot Emma Pallant-Browne in fourth","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/25114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What happened in the swim?
What happened on the bike?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What happened on the run?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Ironman 70.3 World Championship final result<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"