Lucy Charles

In 2019, Charles won Challenge Roth and the European Ironman Championships with her personal record of 8:31:09 hours for the entire race.

She followed that with a third consecutive second place finish at the 2019 Ironman World Championship, clocking 8:46:44.

During her first Ironman of 2018, the African Ironman Championship, she set a new personal best time of 8:56:10. This beat her previous best from the 2017 Ironman Worlds, where she came in with a time of 8:59:48 and was a runner-up behind Daniela Ryf.

In April 2018, at Ironman South Africa, Charles won her second Ironman race. In the same year she again won Challenge's The Championship. In September, she came second at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. At the 2018 Ironman World Championship in October she again landed in second place behind Daniela Ryf and broke the swim record with 48:13 minutes. Her overall time of 8:36:24 is the second fastest in race history.

In May 2017, Charles won Ironman Lanzarote. Furthermore she also won the Challenge Family's The Championship. She also won a second place at the Ironman European Championships. She won the swim in that race in 48:29 minutes and finished the race only 4 minutes behind winner Sarah Crowley. At the Ironman World Championship in October 2017, she again landed a second place behind four time World Champion Daniela Ryf.

In 2014, at age 19, she started her first triathlon. At the time Charles had no experience on running nor cycling. In her second year, in 2015, Charles not only qualified for the World Championships but won in her age-group. In the same year, she became U23 World Champion in Ironman 70.3. In 2016 she turned to be a professional triathlon athlete.

For the 2012 Olympics, Charles' biggest competitior was Keri-anne Payne, who had already won an Olympic silver medal at the open water debut in 2008. Although Charles was doing really well on the build up towards the Olympics it wasn’t enough to be selected. Britain had only one slot, which went to Payne. Charles who was still a teenager at the time was so devastated, that at some point in 2013 she lost the motivation to only keep swimming for the next Olympic opportunity in 2016.

Charles was born north of London, England. When Charles was 8 years old, she started with swimming. A year later she was beating kids that were three or four years older than her. She was the one convincing her coaches to let her compete in events like the 200-meter butterfly, which was the toughest competition there was. With the age of 16 she was national champion. In 2010, there was a test event where Charles competed in and finished as the top competitor from Britain in 16th place. She was only 17 years old at the time and it was her first ever 10K swim. In 2011, Charles figured there would be an even harder event for her to compete in. That year, the Olympic Games 2012 were hosted in London, and the 10K open-water swim, which can be seen as the marathon in swimming, was part of it for the second time.

Lucy Charles-Barclay (born 15 September 1993) is an English professional triathlete specializing in the Ironman and 70.3 distances. Prior to taking up triathlon, Charles was an elite distance and open water swimmer. She attempted to gain selection for the British swimming team for the 2012 Olympic trials in both the pool and open water. She was, however, unsuccessful, despite having beaten open water trials winner Keri-anne Payne in the Great North Swim a month previously. Charles subsequently made her debut in triathlon in 2014 and went on to win the 18-24 women’s age category at the 2015 Ironman World Championship as an amateur. She subsequently turned professional.