She’s back: 5-time Ironman World Champ ‘Angry Bird’ leads packed female field in Kona

On Thursday at 6:25 a.m. HST, the strongest women’s professional field in Ironman World Championship history will be in Kailua Bay to start the grueling 140.6-mile triathlon in Kona. They all will be gunning for “Angry Bird.”

Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf — nicknamed “Angry Bird” due to her steely determined face during races — is competing for her sixth Ironman world title.

The 35-year-old has won five of the last six Ironman World Championships. She also holds the race’s record for the best female finish, with a time of 8 hours, 26 minutes, 18 seconds set in 2018.

“I’m back here on the Big Island; feels definitely very magical,” Ryf said Tuesday during a press conference for the top pro contenders. “The conditions are brutal. I think no other race is that hard. But I think it’s a good reminder when you train. It’s not only beautiful but there’s also hard conditions.

“That combination of fascination, but also a little bit — I wouldn’t say fear, but definitely respect for the race. That’s what makes the race unique in my opinion.”

Ryf is the Ironman World Championship’s defending female champion, but the last race was not held in its longtime home of Kona. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the race to be canceled for two years in a row on the Big Island — in 2020 and 2021 — organizers rescheduled the 2021 version to be held in St. George, Utah, in May 2022.

The last woman to win the race in Kona is Anne Haug of Germany. She posted a fast 2:51:07 run to finish in 8:40:10 to win the 2019 Ironman World Title. Haug also is back, in strong shape, and excited to compete Thursday.

“Given all the time off from here, it almost feels like the Olympics,” Haug said.

The women return to Kona with the Ironman World Championship featuring a new two-race format, in which the pro women compete on Thursday and the pro men race on Saturday.

The main reason was to accommodate the backlog of participants who qualified for the championship and did not have a chance to compete due to the pandemic. So this year’s field is about 5,200, double the average for past races.

But the change in format also provides the chance for the pro women and pro men to not have to share the limelight, and for the pro women not to have to deal with age group men competitors slowing them down.

“I think it means a lot for the women’s field to have their own race, and not have any interruptions from age group athletes or having to swim [through the men’s field],” Ryf said. “I don’t really have that problem … but maybe Lucy would have.”

The dominant female triathlete in the water is Lucy Charles-Barclay of Great Britain. The uber swimmer holds the Ironman World Championship’s best time during the 2.4-mile ocean swim with a time of 48 minutes, 14 seconds, set in 2018.

But Ryf is fast in the ocean too. Pro male triathlete Lionel Sanders — while answering a question about the separate pro men and pro women race days — said he was caught by Ryf in the swim during the 2015 Ironman in Kona.

“As I was coming up the thing to get out of the water, she told me to get out of her way — and really quite aggressively,” Sanders said with a smile while the news media laughed. “And I should be out of the way. You’re right.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryf replied.

“No, it’s all good. … I think it’s proper because I was affecting the women’s race, and that’s not how it should be.”

The pro women also will be the center of attention on Thursday, and lots of that attention will be on Ryf. But she said she does not feel extra pressure because after winning in St. George “I have nothing to prove.”

“I just feel like I want to play and I’m here to play hard,” she said.

But that doesn’t mean she does not have her sights on title No. 6. Since winning in dominating fashion in St. George, by nearly nine minutes over second-place finisher Kat Matthews of Great Britain — Ryf has been on project “Title Defense.”

She spent two months training in the mountains of St. Moritz before traveling to Maui in early September to begin her acclimation to the more humid and hot conditions in Hawai’i.

“Training hard in these conditions is brutal, by my body feels this, as experience has shown,” she said on her own website.

And Ryf concedes: “The field is absolutely packed. That’s a great thing. It shows you have to keep improving to be winning. I do feel I’m a better athlete than I used to be. … I’m pretty sure it’s going to be fast and hard.”

It would have been even more packed but Matthews was hit by a car while on a training ride in Texas last month. She was hospitalized with injuries that included small fractures in her skull. Her husband has said she is expected to make a full recovery.

So who has a shot at taking the crown from Ryf?

Charles-Barclay is shooting for her first victory in Kona after three runner-up finishes in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Her downfall is not running the marathon portion under three hours.

She started the year on a high, as the reigning Ironman 70.3 World Championship (70.3 is known as a Half Ironman). But a hip stress fracture forced her to miss the Ironman World Championship in St. George.

“It feels like a pinch-me moment,” Charles-Barclay said of being in Kona and able to compete. “It has just given me so much fire being back on this island. Being three years away and I thought it might be four.”

Charles-Barclay left everyone guessing until recently if she would compete in Kona. She said she didn’t want to put any pressure on herself until she knew for sure she would be ready.

With Charles-Barclay in the field, Ryf usually has a little ground to make up after getting out of the water. In 2018, she was more than nine minutes behind her, although getting stung by a jellyfish played a role.

But Ryf made up the time with the fastest ride ever on the bike by a pro-woman on the 112-mile, hilly route along Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway. She rode it in 4:26:07. (The bike course usually features grueling conditions of heat, humidity and strong cross winds across the lava fields that make it especially challenging).

The run record is held by three-time Ironman World Champ Mirinda Carfrae, who in 2014 posted a blistering fast 2:50:26 marathon for Hawai’i conditions. It was the year Ryf made her Ironman World Championship debut. She finished second.

But like all athletes, Ryf is not unbeatable. She had one sub-par performance in Kona, in 2019, when stomach problems led to a distant 13th-place finish.

With a victory Thursday, Ryf would tie countrywoman Natascha Badmann with the most Ironman World titles from Switzerland with six. Only the “Queen of Kona,” Paula Newby-Fraser from Zimbabwe, has won more, with eight.

The women’s race at the Ironman World Championship has had 19 different champions from eight countries.

This year’s top female competitors from the United States are Skye Moench and Sarah True.

Moench is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Ironman World Championship in St. George with a time of 8:55:21.

True heads to Kona with the recent accolades of winning the 2022 Ironman Lake Placid North American TriClub Championship and the 2022 Ironman 70.3 Eagleman triathlon.

“I am probably the only person up here who thinks ‘This is vacation week’,” True said. “My son is home, and he’s 14 months, and I’m in grad school. I’m not in a lecture. I’m not changing diapers I can not wait to race. … I think a happy athlete is a faster athlete, and I am definitely that. I have nothing to lose”

Other pro racers who have a shot at winning Thursday include.

• Sarah Crowley of Australia: She won the 2022 National Storage Ironman Australia race and finished in third place at the 2019 Ironman World Championship in Kona.

• Ruth Astle of Great Britain: She finished fifth in her first Ironman World Championship performance, in St. George.

• Laura Philipp of Germany: She finished fourth in the 2019 Ironman in Kona (only her second Ironman) and was expected to do well at the Ironman World Championship in St. George in May, but she came down with COVID and couldn’t compete.

“It was a real bummer,” Philipp said. “Luckily I chose the year that we have the option to run in two championships. So I am happy to have the second opportunity.”

She said with the strong field for Thursday’s race, “even a fourth place will be hard to get.”

Here are the Ironman World Championship female winners from 2008-2021. The 2021 race was held in 2022 in St. George, Utah, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.