My guess is swim for amateurs was wetsuit and due to current they just went straight down and cut out the upstream part.... I guess we will find out soon enough... but I would not think wetsuit vs. not wetsuit would make that much difference. I believe last year or the year before was pro non wetsuit and the times where about 3-5 minutes difference at best.

As we were waiting to start the swim I was under the impression that one of the first upstream turn buoys started floating away...but it's very possible they wanted to minimize the amount of time people were in the water due to the potential for lightning.

Yeah that's what happened

The pro women struggled so hard to actually get up river, given all that rain, that they made the call to cut that whole piece for the amateurs. They relocated the turn buoy and just had us swim straight down river.

So it was not only short it was heavy flow as well

Do they post the slot allocation per age group at 4? I know the roll down process is then but I thought it could be found before hand.

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USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

M18-24 1; F18-24 1
M25-29 3; F25-29 2
M30-34 5; F30-34 3
M35-39 6; F35-39 5
M40-44 7; F40-44 5
M45-49 8; F45-49 5
M50-54 6; F50-54 3
M55-59 3; F55-59 2
M60-64 2; F60-64 1
M65-69 1; F65-69 1
M70-74 1; F70-74 1
M75-79 1
M80-84 1
M85-89 1

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Sylvan Smyth | http://www.sportstats.asia | sylvan@sportstats.asia | Starvas

Did this change result in a longer run to your bikes in T1???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Swim finish was in the same place. No change to that or anything after.

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Sylvan Smyth | http://www.sportstats.asia | sylvan@sportstats.asia | Starvas

What's the plan for 70.3 World's...WTC planning the same gig if slow pro women can't swim as fast as the current? This is problem with these river courses. You figure with an entire world of lakes and waterways to pick from, WTC could do better than having a championship where the swim is potentially conveyor belt aided?

Lake Placid would have been a much more fair venue!

OK, thanks. I guess I would have had to have been there to see exactly how that worked. In any case, another Q: will Matt Russell be forever relegated to the apparent 4th overall place in the overall standings??? I can't think of any way to fairly adjust the pro times to reflect otherwise. Obv someone who looks carefully at the results will see that the pros had a longer swim but your casual observer may not notice that, which seems somewhat unfair to Russell and the other pros.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

so now there are people bragging about their 70.3 "PR" from this race

ericmulk wrote:

another Q: will Matt Russell be forever relegated to the apparent 4th overall place in the overall standings??? I can't think of any way to fairly adjust the pro times to reflect otherwise. Obv someone who looks carefully at the results will see that the pros had a longer swim but your casual observer may not notice that, which seems somewhat unfair to Russell and the other pros.

Yeah, that's kind of sub-optimal. Not sure how that can be fixed on ironman.com. They're aware of the situation. I pulled the pro's out of the individual race into their own race on sportstats.us

https://www.sportstats.us/...s.xhtml?raceid=45613

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Sylvan Smyth | http://www.sportstats.asia | sylvan@sportstats.asia | Starvas

The upriver portion was cut for the age groupers due to the current being "too strong". I hardly noticed any current personally. Came down to probably just over 1000m for the age groupers.

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Adam Feigh
Pianko Law, Speed Hound, Castelli, Sailfish, Base
Feighathlon.com

We usually don't have this much, or this heavy, of rain in the spring. It's been a wet one and this impacts what the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) does with the flow from the dam. The first year I did IM Choo, the flow for the swim was quite strong (I believe someone said it was 14,000 cfs). The next two years, it was noticeably decreased and nowhere near as strong (what I heard was a flow of 6,000-7,000). So, the RD does work with the TVA to reduce the flow and make it less of a conveyor belt but Mother Nature sort of threw a wrench in the plans for this one

The time splits, even for the shortened swim, would indicate quite a decent current.

I like your term "kind of sub-optimal". I noticed that you or someone put a note at the top of the results saying that the pros went 1.2 vs the AGers going 0.8 mi. I guess that is a decent fix. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'm a crap swimmer and I felt like a rocket powered torpedo in the water at 70.3 Choo today. I guess the current benefits the stronger swimmers less?

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Don't drown. Don't crash. Don't walk.