Or is it because of tradition. The Masters is always at Augusta. The Masters in Nice France would not get much TV viewership.

Ironman needs to go back to Hawaii for the championship.

It's part of it. (It's also why I don't think T100 is going to take off in the same way, either.)

As long as Kona can eventually grant two days...I think IM would gladly take it.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I think competition is good. I don't want to see IM and T100 join forces, at least yet. T100/PTO is forcing IM to do things that I'm not sure if IM would have done on their own. Would the IM pro series and all the media stuff that has come with it (photo shoots, athlete profiles, dedicated website, prize purse, etc) even exist if the T100/PTO went away?

My fear is that if they join forces or the T100/PTO fizzles out (which I think it will at some point), is that IM will go back to what they were doing before.

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I think, for the purposes of sustainable sport, the PTO should be swimming in the lane of pro triathlon, solely, and not attempting to put on age group events.

Like, it's bananas that we are six months from Lake Las Vegas and registration still isn't open.

Use those resources on the Pro Series + the two World Championship events + building the broadcast experience that is being demanded.

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I would agree with that. I’m actually interested in doing the Vegas race. It would be nice to know some details so I could start planning.

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Even more bananas is the PTO is buying ads on social media advertising to me like crazy to sign-up for the T100 in las Vegas with a picture of weird middle aged man with his tongue sticking out at me. And if I click on the middle aged man with his tongue sticking out at me, they don't take my money, but just ask me to sign-up and express interest in signing up. (which is what I did when I clicked on the thing to begin with)

As a fan, what I care about is seeing the best race each other as often as possible. T100 is shaping up to offer pretty much that this year, with a few people missing due to the Olympics or just really not being that good at the 100k distance.

The Ironman Pro Series is cool as well as it should make the Ironman distance only specialists and the best of the rest not in T100 race more of the same races.

One thing that should change is Ironman and 70.3 world champion qualification. Give qualification to the top of the standings in T100 and Ironman Pro Series or just by PTO ranking. No fans benefit from the best athletes having to race some random 70.3 with no competition just to qualify.

In summary give me the best at each distance racing against each other all year. The weekends where we have 6 different Ironman champions at 6 different races like it is some big deal is nauseating. Race each other.

That...that's just not ideal marketing.

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History/venue matters. I look a LCB announcing that she won't do Nice this year, and I guarantee she wouldn't have skipped the IMWC if it was in KONA. When's the last time a defending champion opted from the start of the year not to defend (excluding retirements, i.e. Mark and Chrissie)? Might be Mark Allen after his 4th when he took a year to focus on the marathon trials. Nice feels optional (a big race but one of many), Kona doesn't.

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I think that's also got a lot to do with there being two separate series this year too. Would Lucy have skipped Nice if there wasn't T100 as an alternative option? Maybe, but probably not.

does this include the crazy cheap concession prices?

Having the well paying option of T100 certainly makes it easier. As counter points I’ll cite:

-There are many pros doing both T100 and IMWC this year.

-Lucy has committed to Kona in 2025 (Kona), and I would expect will also do T100.

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Hahaha this made me laugh.. Thank you :)

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Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

No running?

Is kinda bizarre because they could ask me to pay an early bird deposit of $20 to unlock priority registration or some nonsense to get me committed. Or I'd just pay for it now if they'd let me. And the dozen or so comments on the ad have others saying the same thing.

But I guess they figure it's better to keep buying ads showing me a picture of a smiling tongue wagging guy in Spanish national race kit to express interest, but not signup for a T100 race in Las Vegas.

They must be spending quite a bit of money advertising something they aren't trying to sell.

I assume the reason is that haven't exactly firmed up the permitting for the course, etc. And it would seem unprofessional to sell race entries for a race that doesn't have a defined course?

I just hope PTO learns their lesson and doesn't keep venue hoping. They've spent too much time hosting events in cities they don't return to. That's got to be a huge addition to their work load to start over from scratch with every new venue.

Having just come back from a week on the big island (stayed at Waikoloa village) I cant see how the Ironman will ever go back to 2 days given the locals resentment to the race, lack of accomodations and the recent news that Hawaii wants to curtain airbnb accommodations. My wife and I competed 3 times together in the early to mid 2000's pre children and I would say that since that time Ali'i drive has continued to deteriorate and quite frankly is dump. And I guess without Kona the Ironman World Championship would lose a lot more interest then it already is due to demographics and costs. (I just looked at my 2004 entry fee and it was $450).

I too am a golf nerd going out for rounds of speed golf after 7pm in the summer with a goal of shooting 70 in under 60 mins on a flatish par 70, Canada PGA tour 6500 yard private course. Perhaps we could get a slowtwitch speed golf tournament going?

i've said before:

rather than reinventing the wheel, maybe PTO should have partnered with a handful of existing, beloved, tv-friendly events. leverage the brand and infrastructure, inject some cash and link it to a wider 'series' of 'classics.' alcatraz, phuket, noosa, nice, maybe something like zofingen or embrunman? this would also give you the interest of different formats/distances.

races like dallas and edmonton featured great fields and were well-organized, i'm sure, but hugely uninspiring to watch on TV. no history there, no good images . . . the racing itself is important but it's only part of the package.

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This was also the way, IMO.

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If only Marriott was reading this thread. A nice new Mega-resort would fix this and fix something for the spouse, kids?? to do all day.

It is kind of bizarre and definitely sad. I assume the high cost of renovation that outpaces wages on the island basically means many locals either sell out or continue to decline.

But when even the hotels and shops downtown Kona are dumpy and it's a little bizarre. Kona definitely needs to be revitalized. You can walk in many of the areas of Milwaukee for instance and see where so much money has been spent to renew the place better than ever. Why isn't Hawaii making this happen with Kona? So much money is flowing into through these mega resorts, construction of mansion communities, etc. You'd think there would be funds to cover some long term loans to fix the place up.

And I'm not saying it needs to be Disneyland. Just fix the dilapidation and improve things in a way that does credit to the Island culture.

Kona is kind of a dump. None of the hotels are nice. The King K Marriott is okay. Kona needs a major revitalization.

The Waikoloa area is exponentially nicer than Kona. I’m surprised the 70.3 doesn’t get more love.

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Not for nothing, the Masters is one of the last remaining events that the playing field isn't completely played with advertisements. It's a beautiful course and it's nice to watch a championship in well-manicured natural areas. Bike racing has a little bit of this, probably just because they couldn't figure out how to plaster 100 miles of roads with adverts.

Idk why but the bike leg of triathlon tends to look rather hideous on TV in comparison to cycling.

I agree,

I never understood Edmonton as a venue (ik Paulas mom) when the toronto triathlon festival and Esprit montreal are wonderful venues in cities with major airports and the quebecois have a history of embracing triathlon and cycling events. Now Esprit has been bought out by Challenge and I'm beyond excited for that race and would be a great location to setup live coverage and fans.

I'm personally only really excited for San Fran atm and kinda Ibiza because its a cool venue. I would have loved to see phuket instead of singapore, I maybe would have woke up in the middle of the night to watch. Noosa I think is WTC owned? Instead of las vegas maybe they could have tried to get the wildflower location? a fair bit further from airports but with the festival setup you could easily have lots of fans and there is a history there too.