After Joy of Women’s-Only Ironman World Championship, Grief Sets In

October 12, 2025

The Ironman World Championship has made a lot of progress in the last three years of women’s-only racing. Now it must avoid a setback.

There was something about this year’s Ironman World Championship week in Kona that felt sad.

The final edition of the women’s-only championship event was empowering and inspiring and all the things we knew it would be, based on the past three years of having race day all to ourselves.

It was a refreshing change from the way it had always been done, which was a shared race where male athletes were centered via a higher number of qualifying slots, earlier start waves, and more airtime on the race broadcast.

But as Triathlete talked to women around the island over the week, there was also a sense of heartache. Triathlete