so basically 3 of the 4 people that had first pick for the slot missed it , if one misses its likely the fault of that athlete , 2 it gets a bit harder to tell , 3 you guess the chances are high its not really the athletes fault.

most likely, either transport was late as most pros that missed it likely stayed in la santa
or at the race briefing wrong time was given if 75 percent of them are too late and it seems like cam was late as well as he wanted one.

the other thing, i am pretty sure this ironman is still not owned by ironman but its run on a license that is owned by the owner of club la santa. so i doubt this transport was an ironman transport,more likely a hotel transport.

Ironman Lanzarote confirms Horseau didn't use any kind of transportation from Ironman to get to the slot allocation but arrived there by his own means. Then they just followed the protocol and now it's up to Ironman organization if they want to take further action.

https://www.triatlonchannel.com/2023/05/25/club-la-santa-ironman-lanzarote-desmiente-la-version-del-coche-oficial-a-horseau/

I can't read Spanish, but maybe he used those shuttles offered by the organizer? Those were available for booking for all athletes between the race start and La Santa for bike check-in, race morning, race evening, awards ceremony. Possibly IronMan claims those don't belong to IronMan, but to La Santa.

well the car might very well have been the official car of the organicer but the organizer is not ironman, while i would guess the people that give away the slots are employees by ironman.
the article does not mention the fact that at least 4 people were late , not just the winner.

Martinussen has explained in a danish podcast the whole situation. He went to the slot allocation because a friend had qualified as AG and accompanied him (they got there in a rental car). Then the PRO slot allocation took place, which apparently he wasn’t aware of as both 1st and 2nd wanted to take their slots and that’s why Wurf and the others weren’t present. They called Horseau 3 times and didn’t show up. Second took his slot. Wurf was called 3 times, also 4th. 5th… He got nervous as it was totally unexpected but thought they may have changed their opinion, so he took it when his name was called.
Horseau, his girlfriend, Laidlow and others were chilling outside the venue having a drink totally unaware of the situation. Then they met and got shocked, asking him if he would give Horseau back the slot. He recognized the effort and the great race and agreed, which they thanked him. He spoke to IM personnel and they said it wasn’t possible for them to do it there as there was a procedure to follow, but advised him to send a mail to IM organization. He also mentions Horseau’s girlfriend (the woman commenting rudely on his post) interrupted him at dinner several times asking him to send the mail right away, which he didn’t as just wanted to be relax but promising he’d do it back at the hotel.
Next morning he got the reply from Paula Newby-Fraser saying the Ironman protocol was followed, and only thing they could offer him was to reject his slot, which would go to the next athlete and not back to Horseau.
He asked for advice to his team and the danish federation as it was a tricky situation to be in, and finally decided to take it.
He tried to get in touch with Horseau and never got an answer, and then he saw all those hate comments by French athletes in his post, mentioning it’s being hard for him and his family to be in this situation.

So apparently it was a big mistake from Horseau not to be there on time, and the history about an Ironman transportation taking him there late was a big lie.
I have a friend who attended the awards and he saw Horseau and Laidlow having a drink outside the venue before the slots.

Martinussen mentions that apparently Ironman is trying to give Horseau an extra slot, but imho, he shouldn’t be offered one. Small mistake not being there on time, big fail. They can’t start making exceptions because he didn’t pay attention to the time schedule.

So I am correct in understanding that the 1st and 2nd place women weren't at the slot allocation?

And the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place men weren't there either? And the 6th place guy was basically only there by accident?

Nobody knew the pro slot allocation was happening before the awards, because it literally never does? If it was one random athlete who didnt show up, its probabky on them. But man...seems like an IM/RD fuck-up if nobody shows up

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It was well publicised in the event schedule many weeks before the event. Slot allocation was earlier than awards ceremony. They even sent out reminders to book shuttles weeks in advance and made it pretty easy for athletes to arrange to get there on time. This does seem to be the athlete at fault in this instance, re. Cam and the others............ they probably chatted after the race and because he knew that the 1st 2 athletes were taking their slot there was no point going to the slot allocation. I would have done this, I already had my (age group) Nice slot so no point going to the rolldown, just arrive later for the awards.

The women’s slots went to the 3rd and the 7th.
The rest of the men didn’t show up because both Horseau and Holdoorn said they would take it, so it didn’t make sense to attend. Otherwise Wurf would have been there as his main goal was to qualify.
About the time shedule, it was mentioned in the mandatory online briefing they all attended, so this time it’s not IM’s fault.

Ok, thanks for clarifying

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good stuff xath10 and dan the man.
does that mean first and 2nd female did not want to go to kona.

Arthus chimes in: https://www.instagram.com/p/CstFQw-tl5z/


People harassing Oliver Martinussen because of this are real turds. He certainly hasn't done anything wrong.

Different event, but St George 70.3 was almost similar. Sam Long was a no show. I assumed he wasn't going because of of the baby? Trevor took his, and it rolled down to Sanders after Jackson said he had his. They called Lionel Sanders several times and he was no where to be seen, but suddenly he showed up and got it. I assume someone was texting him. Or he could have just been late, which I guess is typical.

Thanks Xath for clarifying. This fully backs-up what I was seeing and thinking. 2 points below.

1. Big kudos to Olivier. He deserves it 100%. Not because he was the fastest, but because he was the 2nd fastest of those who followed the rules.
2. I hope IM doesn't do exceptions. Communication was correct. Rules are rules, however hard they can be.

I'm sorry, but this is just too dumb for words. These are your pros competing in the qualifiers for your World Championships. And you've got the winner who beat another guy by 40 minutes and the winner has lost eligibility to your World Championships because of mandatory award ceremony protocol? Award ceremony protocol that was created and intended for AG slot allocation when there were 100 slots to give out to a pool of 2500, not for pros when there are 2 slots to give out from a pool of 15?

It's just straight up stupid and it's IM's own doing because it's so easily preventable if the cause of this is really "protocol" that must be followed. Why not just have every pro fill out a form before the race answering whether they desire a WC slot if they were to earn it? End of story. There's a new protocol for you that actually gets the people who want to be there and who deserve to be there, there. And doesn't have to deal with exceptions to your "protocol" due to hospital visits or late buses or sickness or flight times or whatever legitimate cause might result in someone unable to be present and say "I do".

This shit's so stupid I cannot even comprehend it.

If you're running an event for pros and want to optimize for efficiency, you're right. If you're running an event that pros are included to add value to the overall product that you're selling to age groupers? You make them stick around.

The roll down process is the least efficient thing imaginable. But it sells hope to many more hundreds and thousands of IM customers the current way they do it. They could just include a check box and a credit card hold for anyone at the time of registration. But IM is creating scarcity for its age groupers (which is clearly getting harder and harder to maintain for many reasons). Making pros jump through those hoops does add a small something to the other age groupers sitting around and waiting. It's all a bit manufactured for sure.

It probably would have been better for them to allow the swap right there at the time if both athletes agreed to it. That part is a little bit controlling on the part of the MC or whoever was handling things on the fly.

Sam would have already had his slot from Indian Wells if he wants to go.

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