Kat Matthews is going all in on the IRONMAN Pro Series in 2025, having won the first-ever women’s title last season. And she’s told us why she’s elected not to also take a T100 contract this year, despite having excelled in both spheres in 2024.
The Briton scooped the $200,000 first prize in the Pro Series thanks to full-distance IRONMAN wins in Texas and Vitoria-Gasteiz plus runner-up spots in the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo and 70.3 Tallinn. She also raced at an eventful IRONMAN Hamburg before being disqualified on the bike section.
And in the T100 Triathlon World Tour she featured five times to finish fourth overall for an extra $75,000, with those T100 races including Ibiza which came just six days after the women’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice.
What is Kat’s race schedule?
Finishing in the top 10 of the T100 Triathlon World Tour entitled Matthews to a contracted place in 2025, but that was an option she has decided not to take up.
Instead she’s locked in on the IRONMAN Pro Series – and maiden IRONMAN and 70.3 World titles after going so close last year.
Kat has already outlined her plans in a video posted by IRONMAN on their social channels, explaining: “Provisionally, subject to change, my plan is that I’ll be kicking off at IRONMAN Texas where I’ve won twice already, then moving on to IRONMAN Hamburg, back for revenge.
“Then the home crowd at IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea. [An] extra ‘buffer’ race at 70.3 Zell am See-Kaprun, the big one in Kona – the IRONMAN World Championships – and finishing at beautiful Marbella at the 70.3 World Championships.”
Kona is top of the list
Obviously a “perfect score” would see her win both the World Championships and it’s the quest for the full-distance title in particular that has helped shape her 2025 plans as she explained when we got in touch to find out more.
The T100 schedule has been expanded slightly this year, with the final standings now determined by an athlete’s best four scores (compared to best three in 2024) plus the Grand Final in Qatar.
And when we asked Kat whether she thinks it’s possible to excel in both now, she quite rightly pointed out: “I think I showed that it is possible to excel in both the Series. However, I don’t think it is possible to excel in both Series AND win the IRONMAN World Championships.
“I didn’t take the T100 contract because I believe it would negatively affect my endeavour to win the IRONMAN World Championships.”
How tough was amazing 2024?
She finished the year strongly with that runner-up spot behind Taylor Knibb in the 70.3 Worlds in New Zealand in December but when asked whether the efforts of tackling – what in her words was an “aspirational race schedule” – had pushed her to the limit, she told us: “I’ve no idea, because Taupo went well and therefore I didn’t find the physical limit. The start of the year was perhaps the hardest physically because of my calf injury at the first T100 race in Miami.
“Emotionally, again I finished the year performing well mentally despite the added pressure from the requirement of accumulated scores and a World Title endeavour.”
And in terms of that six-day gap between the IRONMAN World Championship and T100 Ibiza, she added: “I was surprised I was able to complete Ibiza physically, but sadly due to some issues during the bike (perhaps) in Nice I wasn’t able to physically perform to my best in Nice so the tank was not emptied there.
“The hardest I had to push was T100 London, which came two weeks after IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz – those race heart rate values are records for me and mind blowing!
“Ultimately, the team around me and I managed my training load to accommodate for this aspirational race schedule.
We didn’t find the limit exactly but I think I was very close to it!
And looking forward it’s clear that Kona in October is the race that stands above all others, with Kat signing off by saying: “For 2025 I’ve decided to focus more on the IRONMAN distance and perhaps actually train for it with more specificity.”
