The 2023 Kona Ironman World Championship Women’s Pro Start List, Race Numbers

With the conclusion of the last women’s qualifying events for the 2023 Hawaii Ironman World Championships last weekend, we have a rough picture of what the start line will look like in Kona in October. While there will certainly be some drops and potentially an invite/wildcard addition or two, for the most part the list below for the 2023 Hawaii Ironman World Championship will remain the same.

Read below for the list, placed in order of the most recent PTO ranking (Aug. 7) as of the final IMWC qualification event, along with a quick analysis of who’s racing, and some stats to help get a sense of what race day in Kona will look like.

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Pro Women Ironman World Championship Qualifiers: 2023

Surprisingly, the ranking composition of the women’s field almost exactly mirrors the men’s list with key athletes from the PTO top 20 missing on the start list in 2023. This year, there are eight women in the PTO top 20 not racing in Kona and only just over 50% of the PTO top 50 on the start line.

For the men, some guessed that the diminished amount of “top-ranked” talent at this year’s Ironman World Championship was due to the men’s location in Nice, France. However, with the women racing in the traditional IMWC spot and the numbers roughly matching, it shows that the rankings (which changed this year) might have more of an impact or—more likely—that athletes are finding more value out of the PTO Tour and placing less emphasis on IMWC.

That said, there is still a huge amount of talent scheduled to be on the line in Kona—returning winners like Anne Haug, Daniela Ryf, and reigning champion, Chelsea Sodaro. Missing are more mid-distance specialists like PTO number-one ranked Ashleigh Gentle (who has focused on the PTO Tour very heavily), Paula Findlay, Holly Lawrence, Emma Pallant-Browne, Tamara Jewett, and reigning Olympic champion Flora Duffy.

In terms of countries represented, the U.S. has substantially more than other nationalities in the women’s pro field, with traditional tri powerhouses like Australia, Germany, the U.K., and now France clustered behind.

The breakdown of the list as of 9/27 is below:

USA: 12

Germany: 7

Australia, United Kingdom: 6

France: 4

Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden: 2

Austria, Chile, Czech Republic, Poland Spain, Switzerland: 1