How Taylor Knibb Helped Kat Matthews Set an Ironman World Record

At the pre-race press conference for Ironman Texas, Kat Matthews was asked to pinpoint a specific moment when she fell in love with triathlon. Her answer: chasing Taylor Knibb.

“I was about 2:13 back from Taylor Knibb in the [2024] Taupo 70.3 World Championship, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can do this,’” Matthews said as Knibb laughed from the next seat over. “I obviously didn’t do it, but I thought, ‘I love this. I’m running really fast downhill and I’m catching her.’”

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We saw that exact same glint in Matthews’ eye on Sunday as she went after Knibb once again in Texas. It was a race dynamic we’ve watched play out before: Knibb crushed the bike leg, as she does, setting a course-record bike split of 4:19:46 before hightailing it out of T2 with an almost six-minute lead on Matthews.

The difference this time? Matthews actually caught her.

In every single previous matchup between Knibb and Matthews, Knibb has won, from their first throwdown at the 2021 Collins Cup through their 10th battle at last year’s Ironman 70.3 World Championship. On the 11th duel, it took a literal record-breaking effort from Matthews to finally beat Knibb.

Kat Matthews vs. Taylor Knibb results

Source: Professional Triathletes Organization

A new Ironman world record from Kat Matthews

When Matthews crossed the finish line of Ironman Texas in 8:10:34, she became the fastest-ever woman in Ironman history, besting Laura Philipp’s 8:18:20 set at Ironman Hamburg 2022.

Along the way, she clocked a 2:49:18 marathon, catching Knibb near the nine-mile marker of the marathon, then building a lead of almost ten minutes.

It was a perfect performance from Matthews, who has become one of the most successful long-course triathletes of the past five years. In 2020, Matthews won her first Ironman in Florida; by 2022, she was a runner-up at the 2021 Ironman World Championships in St. George. That same year, Matthews smashed the eight-hour barrier at the Sub8 challenge, clocking a 7:31:57 in carefully-controlled conditions to achieve an unofficial world’s fastest Iron-distance time.

She picked up another second-place at the 2024 Ironman World Championship in Nice, plus a pair of second-place finishes behind Knibb at the 70.3 World Championships. Last year, she won the Ironman Pro Series, bringing a payday that made her the highest earner in the sport (male or female) for 2024. Now, she’s in the Ironman record books alongside previous record-holders like Chrissie Wellington and Daniela Ryf.

After the race in Texas, Matthews credited the “absolutely incredible competitors” of the women’s professional field with inspiring her world-best performance. “I really feel like the depth of the women’s field is just growing and growing,” she said in a post-race interview on Outside TV.

This is true – professional women’s triathlon has never been faster. Matthews is a shining example of the competitive drive lifting the field. There have been superlative women in the sport before – Wellington and Ryf, most notably – but they were always in a class of their own. Today, women’s triathlon is collectively the most competitive it’s ever been, thanks to the likes of Matthews, Anne Haug, Lucy Charles-Barclay, and Laura Philipp – all have broken records in the past three years. This has created fast and exciting racing all around: at Kona 2023, a mind-blowing 16 pro women finished in under nine hours.

The Taylor Knibb factor

For the past few years, the women’s long-course pro field has talked nonstop about Taylor Knibb – three-time Ironman 70.3 world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist – in the same way one might discuss a developing hurricane. Everyone knew she was coming, and there was almost guaranteed destruction once she made landfall. But how severe would it be? No one would know until it happened.

Perhaps, then, it was no surprise that Knibb blew into the Ironman scene like a force of nature – a last-minute decision to debut at the distance during the 2023 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, fresh off of qualifying for her second Olympic team in two events. In Kona, she placed fourth behind Charles-Barclay, Haug, and Philipp (Matthews did not finish the race). In a post-race interview with Triathlete, Knibb said she did the best with what she could on limited preparation and a few first-time Ironman hiccups (including losing her bottles on the bike). In just one race, the 25-year-old showed she had not only conquered short- and middle-distance racing, she was a threat at long-course triathlon, too – even on limited training.

Knibb spent 2024 focusing on the Paris Olympics, where she picked up her second silver medal in the triathlon mixed relay. Meanwhile, long-course triathletes were tracking Hurricane Taylor, knowing 2025 would be the year she would approach Ironman training in a focused way.

At Texas, her second-ever Ironman, Knibb finished second behind Matthews in 8:20:15 – 12 minutes faster than Matthews’ winning time in 2023 and 22 minutes faster than 2024. That’s scarily good, and highlights just how dangerous Knibb will be when she cracks the code of the Ironman bike-run combo – in a post-race interview on Outside TV, Knibb says she didn’t execute [her race plan] super well” and that she “rode way too hard.” She also echoed Matthews in saying the competitive energy in Texas drove her: “Seeing Kat on the run, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, she’s having a day.’”

Seeing Kat on the run, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, she’s having a day.’

We’ve seen this before

In 1987, Erin Baker did what had never been done before in women’s Ironman World Championship racing: running the entire marathon without walk breaks.

The historic feat nearly four decades ago was inspired by the previous year’s world championship, where winner Paula Newby-Fraser became the first woman to break 10 hours at an Ironman in only her second attempt at the distance. Like Knibb, Newby-Fraser was suddenly the new kid on the block with the biggest target on her back.

Baker had dominated women’s triathlon for several years prior. Like Matthews, she knew she had to step up her game in response to her new rival, and that’s exactly what she did at the 1987 race. Exiting T2 more than five minutes down from Newby-Fraser, Baker started running and never stopped. Newby-Fraser was stunned when Baker made the pass en route to a new record time of 9:35:25.

“To be frank, in 1987, I still did not think it was comprehensible to run the full marathon,” Newby-Fraser told Triathlete in a 2023 interview. “The loss to Erin late in the event in 1987 whilst walking through aid stations showed what was possible.”

The Baker and Newby-Fraser rivalry was never friendly to start with, and its intensity escalated over the years, yielding some of triathlon history’s most legendary tales. It also changed triathlon forever, with records falling year after year in a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship.

Though Matthews and Knibb are far more collegial than Baker and Newby-Fraser, one can’t help but see elements of history repeating itself. Matthews and Knibb have spoken highly of each other in pre-race press conferences when going head-to-head at Ironman and T100 events, but it’s clear each occupies at least a small plot of unmortgaged real estate in the other’s brain. In the days leading up to Texas, Matthews talked about her 10-race losing streak to Knibb in an episode of Ironman streaming series “A Fighting Chance.”

 

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“I’ve never beaten Taylor,” she said with a smile that feels prophetic in hindsight. “But I’m confident I can really challenge her in this race.”

That’s exactly what she did. But in this modern-day rivalry, acrimony is replaced with sportsmanship. At the finish line in Texas, Knibb fell to her knees with exhaustion from the sheer effort of the day. Within seconds, Matthews was sitting on the ground next to her, offering a hug and words of respect. The smiles on their faces made it clear that Matthews wasn’t lying at the pre-race press conference: This kind of racing is what they love the most.

In a post-race interview with Triathlete, Knibb reciprocated Matthews’ respect, saying, “It was not a battle. It was Kat’s dominance. I’m really excited for her; she’s put the world on notice, and so I have a lot of work to do.”

Taylor Knibb’s full post-race interview from Ironman Texas 2025

What’s next for Kat Matthews vs. Taylor Knibb

In Texas, both athletes validated their spots for the Ironman World Championships, but it’s not certain if these two will match up again before October. Knibb is contracted to race the T100 World Tour, where she is currently undefeated at the distance. Matthews, meanwhile, will focus on defending her Ironman Pro Series title. These two forces of nature will most likely exist in separate realms for most of this season, and perhaps that’s a good thing – each can gain momentum for their next head-to-head in Kona.

And if history is any indication, we’ll see a race for the record books.