I'd be concerned about this system watering down fields. It doesn't seem like they're really loading up the slots at any races, so there is little incentive for the top pros to enter into the same race. The release to athletes suggest 6 spots for regional champs (2M, 2F, and 2 floaters). If it had 10 spots (4M, 4F, 2 floaters) you'd get more heavy hitters signing up for the same races. They could get the extra slots for the regional championships by having some pro races without slots, creating a 2nd tier of pro racing for new or developing pros.

That's an excellent example of something that did not make sense in the old system. Someone who was among the favourites in Kona for several years is away from racing for legitimate reasons, comes back and wins at the highest level again, but that was not enough to be allowed to compete ... In the new rules she can just hop back in instead of having to do a few more races.

The people winning their races should be at the championship race, it's only those who would not have much of a chance there anyway that will now have it a bit harder. But I don't see a big problem with that.

 I view the new approach as a positive improvement with respect of the possibility of it resulting in more female pros at Kona, but the proof will be in the pudding I guess. //

Well it is built in that there will be more female pros, they start with two more than the old 35. And of course during the year they will add a few more, but they are never going to get parity with the men on this, so probably mid to high 50's for the men and low to mid 40's for the women. Everyone gets a bump up in this system, and it seems pretty fair to me. Of course there will be some that just focus on the actual numbers and get miffed that the women are still quite a ways below the men, but someone is going to bitch no matter what they did.


As someone said earlier, it will enable a lot of pros having an off day to just pull the plug once out of the money spots, no need to race for some points out of the $$$. That is a good thing too, that is if your goal is to have the best athletes in the best shape for Kona..

The use of the term "possible" in your initial comment is the hang up for me. Does the formula allow for equality in the sense the members of both genders have the same change of obtaining a spot at Kona? It appears so with the use of the floating slots.

If you are looking for a 50/50 split on the pier, at this point, that would not be equality, it would be affirmative action. When the number of pro women and pro men are equal, then a 50/50 split makes sense. With this qualifying model, that is achievable without any mandates.

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Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour

I'm curious as to how they're going to allocate the floating spots given that we know therebwere issues with how they allocate kona slots for the amateurs. How do they round?

Say there are 4 provisional slots and there are 10 men and 6 women. That's 63% men. Do they split 2&2 (for 50%/50%) or do they split 3&1 (for 75/25).

Since theyre only doing a few slots per race how they decide to round will have big implications for gender balance on the pier.

Think that depends on whether they use a different allocation formula from AGs, which I would think they would need to since they're working with much smaller numbers.

Based on your scenario, with the current allocation formula (I'm not 100% certain I have it right but in 6 races this year, it did allocate correctly) it would be 2 & 2 because the females closer to the 'next clean slot' than the males are.

If I change the 6 females to a 5, then we have a real shitshow because both are equally to the next step. Their broken formula does wonky things here and there in the AGs but still allocate most slots easily and the large numbers make a tie for the last slot very, very unlikely.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

Thorsten breaks it down pretty simply.

https://www.trirating.com/...-kona-pro-race-2019/

Thorsten breaks it down pretty simply.

https://www.trirating.com/...-kona-pro-race-2019/ //

Thats exactly what I guessed in my first attempt, just pulling it out of the air!! Don't need no stinking homework...

That solution seems quite messy and ripe for criticism, especially with the move to even number of floating slots. Odd numbered slots would seem much less messy. That way 3 slots could fall 2/1 and 5 slots could fall 3/2

What's exactly the maths behind this:
Ironman Cozumel: 19 female, 34 male -> 2 male slots ?

I believe that its including the winner slots as well.

Then for Men,
3 Slots (75%) for 64% participation

Women
1 Slot (25%) for 36% participation

This way gives an 11% delta between optimal slots and given slots. Its a closer distribution than if it were 2/2 it would be a 14% delta (e.g. men getting 50% of the slots on 64% participation, women 50% on 36%).

This is all conjecture on my part though. If I recall Ironman was giving age groupers the first slot independent of the remaining allocated slots (i.e. the first slot wouldn't count towards the distribution). Or did they change this?

Thanks I needed some time but I understand now.