British triathlon superstar Kat Matthews should rightly be proud of her incredible achievements in 2024, but she is now targeting even bigger things in 2025.
Matthews finished second at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice behind Laura Philipp in September before replicating that performance in the 70.3 World Championship in Taupo in December – this time behind the incredible Taylor Knibb. She also claimed a $200k bonus for topping the standings in the inaugural IRONMAN Pro Series.
Despite that success, Kat is leaving no stone unturned in her bid to win the biggest prizes in the sport in 2025 – notably enlisting the assistance of new cycling coach Alex Dowsett, a two-time stage winner on the Giro d’Italia and a six-time British National Time Trial Champion.
Matthews puts focus on the bike
Speaking on IRONMAN’s documentary series ‘Pre-Season: A Fighting Chance’, Matthews outlined why she feels Dowsett can help her to “bridge the gap”.
She said: “This year, what’s exciting is I have tried to split away from triathlon slightly and gone more single sport-focused.
“I’ve asked world renowned pro cyclist Alex Dowsett to focus more on my cycling, but specifically time trialling and I think that’s what is really exciting for me – going pure fastest on the road, proper cycling.
“I felt I needed something to bridge the gap a little bit to my cycling potential, and at the moment it’s going really well. I know I can hit high power, but I need to be able to sustain the uncomfortable and I think that’s also let me down before.
“I also get distracted easily and bored, I need to have more confidence in my ability to just get on with it when I’m not surrounded by people, and if I want to bridge gaps alone I am not relying on the dynamics of a group to work with people.”
World Championship dream
Matthews says her concluding thoughts from the 2024 season were that her ultimate ambition remains unfulfilled – winning World Championship titles.
“The biggest takeaway from coming second at both the IRONMAN World Championships and the 70.3 World Championships is that I really want to win one,” she said.
“The silver lining of not winning is that it reminds you that you really want to win and I think it drives that motivation.”
Despite the changes she has made, Kat is wary of adjusting her training methods too much following a season where she recorded two victories and five other podiums in 10 race outings.
She said: “I think every year you are tempted to change everything, but I think nothing is fundamentally changing, it’s still the same for me. I feel like I’m quite early in my triathlon progression and every year seems to be progressing across all three sports.
“I guess looking from the outside I have changed coaches. That can be a really significant change in training stimulus. There was no negatives to the change, it was just a new opportunity.”
Kat confirmed earlier this year that her provisional season debut would be at IRONMAN Texas (April 26), where she has twice won previously, before moving on to IRONMAN Hamburg (June 1).
Her plan is then to head to IRONMAN 70.3 Swansea (July 13), 70.3 Zell am See-Kaprun (August 31), the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona (October 11) and the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella (November 9).
