Barclay Izzard has been a consistent performer at World Triathlon and Europe Triathlon Cups, with a number of top-10 finishes as well as European medals to his name.
His consistent results started when he was a youth and junior, winning back-to-back British Triathlon Junior Super Series titles in 2016 and 2017. It was during the first year when Barclay made his international debut at the Junior European Cup race in Quarteira, Portugal.
It was the first of two international races he would compete at in 2016, placing 12th in both Quarteira and Junior European Cup Holten.
2017 was another year of progression for Barclay, not only winning the British Triathlon Junior Super Series title for the second consecutive year, but also representing Great Britain at his first international championships.
Barclay finished 18th in the junior race at the European Championships in Kitzbuhel before teaming up to finish fifth in the mixed junior relay. More top-10 results followed including sixth at Junior European Cup Lausanne and the same position at the World Triathlon Junior Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
His first international win came at the start of 2018 when he won the elite men’s race at European Sprint Triathlon Cup Gran Canaria in March 2018. Barclay continued his debut year in elite races with sixth at Europe Triathlon Cup Melilla and then seventh on his World Triathlon Cup debut in Cagliari, Italy.
The results earned him a spot on the Great Britain team for the European Championships and he recorded a top-10 finish at his first senior major championships, finishing ninth in Glasgow.
This was the start of a few months of Championship racing for Barclay who finished 15th in the men’s U23 race at the World Under 23 Championships on the Gold Coast. It was then over to the European U23 Championships where he was seventh in the individual race, before being part of the silver medal winning mixed U23 relay team.
Just as he had done in 2018, Barclay started 2019 with victory, this time coming in the elite men’s race at European Triathlon Cup Huelva. The rest of the year saw Barclay feature regularly on the World Triathlon Cup circuit with his best World Cup finish of the year coming in Tiszaujvaros, where he finished fifth.
There was also a top-five finish for Barclay at the European Championships, bettering his ninth place from the year before, with fifth place in Weert, the Netherlands, where he was also part of the mixed relay team which finished sixth.
Major Results
After a delay to the start of his season in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, Barclay made his World Triathlon Championship Series debut in Hamburg in September, finishing 19th in the elite men’s race.
It was an event which also saw Barclay claim World mixed relay bronze as part of the Great Britain team which competed at the World Mixed Relay Championships a day later.
Onto 2021 and it was another disrupted start to the year, but he came back to record another top-10 finish at World Triathlon Cup Karlovy Vary, his only international race finish of the year.
Barclay’s 2022 included a second-place finish at Europe Triathlon Cup Melilla and silver at Europe Triathlon Championships Olsztyn over the sprint distance in the first few months of the season.
A seventh-place finish at Europe Triathlon Cup Rzeszow came in between Olsztyn and another outing for Great Britain at the World Triathlon Championship Series, again in Hamburg.
It was 13th place for Barclay in the elite WTCS men’s race before teaming up with Sian Rainsley, Sam Dickinson and Kate Waugh to win mixed relay gold. Then it was another top-five result for Barclay at World Triathlon Cup Pontevedra before finishing 30th at Europe Triathlon Championships Munich.
