The YEAR of the KAT

From army physio to the fastest female long-distance athlete on the planet, GB's Kat Matthews' rise up the ranks has been swift and assured. Here, in a 220 exclusive, she opens up on her biggest season yet...

- Rob Slade

It's 10.58am on 21 June and 220 is expecting a very special visitor. Just two weeks on from a remarkable-performance at the Sub8 in Germany, British pro Kat Matthews is visiting us in Bristol for a chat and photoshoot.

Forgive the pun, but the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. Any reservations about Kat's ability to cor at the very pinnacle of long-distance racing have long been erased thanks to her performances at both the Ironman Worlds in May and the Sub8 in June. In her first full-distance worlds, Matthews placed runner-up to five-time champion Daniela Ryf. Four weeks later she smashed the elusive 8hr women's long-distance barrier in a time of 7:31:54 at the invite-only Sub8 project, having taken the place of an injured Lucy Charles-Barclay.

The phone rings. It's Kat, letting us know she's arrived. She's right on time, but that's not surprising given her background as a physiotherapist officer in the Army. We help bring in her kit, including a weighty Sub8 trophy. Though by her own admission a photoshoot is far from her comfort zone, she seems relaxed, unassuming and open to the many ideas we have for the forthcoming shoot - after a chat about coffee, of course.

Having only taken up tri in 2015 before turning pro in 2019, Matthews hasn't been in the sport long. And it's even less time when you consider the two pandemic-interrupting seasons since her step up. Not that this hampered her results, the 31-year-old starting 2022 with two full and three halfIronman wins to her name.

By the time the Sub8 project rolled around, Matthews had joined the growing number of voices tipping her for success: "I know I can go sub-eight," she told us in April. She wasn't wrong, smashing it by almost half an hour.

Of course it's not all been as easy as it sounds, and over a very pleasant few hours Matthews opened up on the battles she faced in both of those huge events, the importance of balance and what comes next...