One of me training buddies went 10:32 in Kona. He was a lottery winner.
In the Men’s 35-39 AG, 178 of the 256 finishers (255 age-groupers, per you Larsen-bashers!) were beat by a lottery winner.
#41 in the AG was David Morken, a lottery winner, who finished in 9:44:32. One minute behind Mr. Larsen. Sounds like he could have qualified somewhere as well and perhaps used the lottery as a back-up.
The next lottery winner to finish in that AG came in at 10:35. He was #150 out of 256 in the AG.
FYI…if you were 10:18 or quicker at Lake Placid this year, you could have qualified for Kona in this AG.
The 3rd place lottery finisher in this AG was the only other lottery winner to place in the “middle third” of the AG. He came in at 10:45, #169 of 256.
There were 38 lottery winners out of the 256 in the AG. 35 of them were in the back-third of the pack. There’s a few scattered in the results (#174, #179, #182, #197, #198, #205). Then, most of those in places 211-256 were lottery winners.
The median time of the lottery winners in this AG was 12:30. The median for the whole AG was 10:28. The median for the non-lottery qualifiers in the AG was 10:18.
So…a fair number of qualifiers (and perhaps some “special entries” such as charity slots) were “beat” by at least one lottery winner. Most of those “beat” had marathon times of 4:xx:xx, so I wouldn’t say they had a “death march”.
The lottery winners were obviously slower by a pretty wide margin. As far as the lottery winners being “worthy”, keep in mind that the founders of the race sold it with the stipulation that there be a way for the “everyday” athlete to participate.
Disclosure: The only way I’m going to participate at Kona in the next 40 years is through the lottery.
Make that former AG record holder. ST’s own Mariana Phipps is the new AG record holder. She SMASHED the record on Saturday!
clm
I can’t speak to that for this year, but a couple of years ago, Cheri Gruenfeld got a Lottery spot. I seem to recall that she won her age group that year, or if not, was very close, and is a multi-time age-group winner and record holder.
qualifying is a kind of a lottery too, because it all depends on who shows up at your particular qualifying race. Because of this, it’s quite possible that a lottery pick could have a faster IM PB than someone who qualified in that AG.
Someone mentioned the Boston qualifiers - it’s much less random to set a time per age group as a qualifying standard. Admittedly this doesn’t work well with IM, because of the vastly different courses. But if you want a ‘world championship’, it would be fairer to have a qualifying standard time.
This thread shows why it’s a good idea to keep the lottery…
Actually, I believe McMichael qualified through 2000, in part because of top-10 AG performances in the previous years.
http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/features/ironman/agegroupredux.html
Not saying she didn’t get “lucky” in lotteries, just don’t think it was that lucky.
Good point.
~Matt
Thanks for the link. That in part further makes the point about the qualifier/lottery differences.
However, and I could be wrong, I certainly have been before, but I thought the only age-grouper who “qualified” for the next year’s IMH on performance at Kona was the category champion. I know that the top ten pros are automatically qualified for the next year, but didn’t think that extended to the age groups.
I bet you’re right. I remember hearing “top 10”, but that makes sense it is just the top ones.
I know she won the lottery a few years in a row…just 7 doesn’t sound right.
I would wonder why someone that ran a ~10 hr IM at HI would want to enter via lottery. Seems to me that individual should be able to qualify at many other races.
Maybe a personality trait of mine, but I’d be WAYYYYY pissed at myslef if I won the lottery and then ran a 9:30-10 in Kona. IOW I should have just gone out and qualified.
I guess maybe if you’ve done umpteen IM’s and never came close to qualifing 11-12’s and then got in via lottery and then somehow had “the perfect race”…nahhh I’d still be pissed at myself.
~Matt
I’ve missed something here…how do you tell if a person is a lottery winner or qualified? Do they announce that? Is there a special colored race number? How would you know a person you caught at the finish was a lottery entrant?
Are you guys comparing the lottery list to age group catagories?
Maybe something happened (like a DNF) at their planned qualifying race. However you get there, you still have to cross the finish line 1st to win. Isn’t in boxing that whoever challenges and beats the current champ gets to be champ? Its not how you get there, its what you do once the race is on that counts…kj
One simple question…where and how did you get this info?
Very cool.
~Matt
.
Again a personality issue on my part, but kona is a championship. You go when you qualify…if you can. If you have bad race but are capable of qualifing…you don’t go.
I have no problems with the lottery. I may even use it some day. But before I even think of doing it I plan on using every trick in my bag to try and actually qualify.
I know that after 5, 10, 15 years of consistant training done to the best of my knowledge, ability and effort, that if I’m still doing 11:30-12:00hr IM’s…I ain’t ever gonna qualify. I May do the lottery then.
Again personal choice.
~Matt
I agree, and I asked that guy in '02. He said he had originally planned to try and qualify, but entered the Lottery anyway. (You do have enter early, it think…isn’t in the prior fall, or something like that?) He said he was entered in LP, but when he got the lottery slot he decided to bag LP, and just did a Half IM as his “certification” race prior to Kona.
Different strokes…too bad he took away a chance at a lottery slot from someone with no realistic hope of qualifying.
“Different strokes…too bad he took away a chance at a lottery slot from someone with no realistic hope of qualifying.”
Kinda my point as well. Like I said if I had any inkling that I could qualify I’d probably keep trying until I did. However if I never came anywhere near qualifing even after trying everthing I could think of, within some reason, I might do the lottery.
~Matt
Speak up I can’t hear you?!
~Matt
But he left more Gatorade for others at LP…
Because you were racing for charity and did not want the pressure of having to qualify since you had been through it (qualifying) before.
I think last year I beat one of the qualifiers in the 75-79 AG.