(Reuters) -Norwegian Solveig Lovseth pulled off a dramatic finish at the Ironman World Championship on Saturday, overtaking American Taylor Knibb on the final climb of the run to seal victory in eight hours, 28 minutes and 27 seconds, in the last standalone women's event in Kona.
Knibb had led much of the race, and was favoured to win when Britain's Lucy Charles-Barclay withdrew near the Energy Lab after struggling in the sweltering heat. The 2023 champion embraced her husband at the roadside before entering a medical wagon, effectively bowing out of the contest.
With Charles-Barclay's exit, Knibb appeared to ease her pace, walking through an aid station and slowing slightly with fewer than 10 km to go. Lovseth, down by 3:23 at that point, mounted a powerful surge and in the final 3.5 km, Knibb collapsed on the pavement, allowing the 26-year-old Norwegian to storm past to the finish.
"It's still hard for me to wrap my head around it," Lovseth said.
"I didn't really have my best swim, but I kept my calm, and on the bike I felt really good.
"I was just taking a turn in the group, and then I looked back, and I realized I wasn't with the group anymore. I'm all alone now, so I might try to go with it."
British athlete Kat Matthews secured second place, 35 seconds behind for her third Ironman silver medal, while Laura Philipp, the 2024 champion, completed the podium in third, nine minutes and one second behind.
Lovseth's win adds to Norway's growing dominance in 2025, just a month after Casper Stornes led an all-Norwegian podium in the men's world championship in Nice, France.
More than 1,700 age-groupers joined the professionals on the iconic Big Island course, racing in temperatures around 28 Celsius degrees with high humidity. Fans lined the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway to cheer what is expected to be the final women-only Ironman World Championship in Hawaii.
Ironman's decision to reunify the men's and women's world championships from 2026 ends a short-lived experiment of alternating venues.
The split, introduced in 2023 to manage COVID-related entry backlogs, faced criticism for diluting the sport's premier event. Surveys conducted by Ironman suggested most athletes wanted both fields reunited in Kona.
With Lovseth's maiden Kona victory, a dramatic chapter in Ironman history closes, and from next year the women's champion will once again share the spotlight with the men.
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico City; Editingby Raju Gopalakrishnan)
