Dev. More girls globally will learn how to bike and swim because women will be getting more slots for the Ironman World Championship?

I must have misunderstood.

---

"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Good point. Another disadvantage for the Saturday-watchers: triathlon-watching can already be boring as hell, and upto now there were at least two races covered at the same time (man/women), which gave some variation, and now you're watching just one. Hours and hours you see but Frodeno or Blumenfeldt on a bike.

From a viewing point of view I’m glad it’s over two days. WC races have big fields and this will allow the camera crew to put more focus on the rest of the field. For example there was barely any coverage of Sanders until later on at St George

I agree it will be tough to watch the womens races which is a shame. Not sure why they don’t do a fri and sun. Watching on a Friday may be a little bit more convenient for people then watching on a Thursday. Although live coverage is only a very small part of Kona.

Some more thoughts: It's a WC, also for AGs. Why do they not regularly give information about the current status of each AG, maybe with a fixed camera showing shots of each leader.

It's an accessibility question. Women's sport grows when accessibility is expanded -- with the most famous of those examples being Title IX in the United States.

So yes, build an on-ramp for women to be able to compete in larger numbers at the premier long-distance triathlon event, and you might get more women and girls participating in the sport period.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Yes, you are probably right they can just cut a deal with the cruiseline to get their money.

But is there any water deep enough in Kailua Kona for a large cruise ship to even dock. Or is the nearest deep enough water the port in Kawaihai? (in other words how do people get on and off cruise ship to do daily stuff fast enough?)

More a general reply to this thread, but since the draft fest in Kona is mainly men 20-49, put the male 20-49 championship race on Thursday in Waikoloa and just run it on 2x Honu course.

Keep the Pro championship, women's championship and M50+ on Saturday in Kona,

Go test it out and see if that kills the goose that lays the golden egg or not. By all account a worlds in St.George was pretty good, so why not a race in Waikokloa and one in Kona. The 2xHonu course would be harder than the 1xKona course and eliminate the bulk of drafting which is devaluing the Kona race anyway. Any you could expand slots a bit for M20-49 who are the biggest part of the market.

I think you meant M30-59 these days…

St George was an excellent single year stop gap. And there should always be a full there IMO. But don’t start mucking with the golden goose. Once you do, it’s near impossible to re-capture it.

Moving to two days doesn’t change it much. They just need to be proactive to solve the lodging and logistical challenges.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Or...

Just keep the race as it is. Seems like only thing that needs to be done with expanded days...figure out shuttle service from Waikoloa (the easiest thing).

AGers will keep coming back, no matter what. Draftfest, non-draftfest.

The only people that are likely "devaluing" Kona in reality is the very small echo-chamber of people here, maybe of course a bit wider.... but probably easy to think the perspective of 10s of people commenting on a thread here on ST speaks for all IM triathletes. Not saying that you believe this, commenting in general.

I can say as N = 1. Racing this year for the first time. Have raced half dozen IMs. Missed narrowly several times. Have done other cool races like Norseman (black shirt!). So pumped to finally go. Only interested in traditional course. No interest in alternative. Don't care what day I race (I'm racing Thursday and perfectly fine with that). Don't care if draft-fest as I will be riding my own race. Don't care about "historical vibe" the town had. I'm excited for whatever vibe it will be. Because I don't know any better. I'm staying in town pre-race and moving to Waikoloa resort the day after. Know it's going to be $$$$$$$ but have saved for this. Am fine if this is my one and only Kona.

Ironman is smart. I'm sure they know the funnel is still quite large for drawing (and maximizing revenue on) a few thousand people to race Kona each year... still a ton of people like me. If my business - man, any business...the question is how are you growing? How are you expanding past the narrowing of audience that has raced there 2, 4, 6, 8X times? You just keep those people... that's the way you go out of business.

You don't have to change the race. Just add different people.

Yep - I don't get it.
Expand the field. Fill the course. Both race days should be done at full capacity.
Now, did they decide that full capacity number they used in the past recently was really too full?
I dunno.

The cruise ships don’t dock in Kona. They anchor out in the water about a mile or so offshore and little shuttle boats go back and forth. The shuttle boats drop off and pick up at Kailua Pier. So you can see the problem there.

The other issue with cruise ships is that they cannot operate as hotels without special approval from the local jurisdictions. Obviously, this has been done at other places so it’s a matter of paperwork, bureaucracy, and money.

Nevertheless, the issue of getting people on and off the cruise ship could prove insurmountable.

---

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Dude, check your privilege. I am also a male school teacher and I know I have advantages that my non cis-male (and straight) colleagues do not have.

Yes, we work hard, but our race is shorter and comes with more aid stations along the way.

---

80/20 Endurance Ambassador

So, is this just for 2023 or will this be the case moving forward? Maybe this was somewhere and I missed it......

SO happy it's back in Kona!

On my run today I was thinking about the men racing Saturday. Do you think they will be out spectating Thursday? I would imagine that a lot will be staying out of the heat and not out late.

The Saturday race will have everyone from Thursday’s race as well now.

Is there a reason they couldn't make the two days further apart? Meaning each race on a Saturday a week or two apart to alleviate some if the congestion. I don't have any numbers, but assuming most people don't have immediate family racing on Thursday and Saturday.

I have never been to Kona, I hope to go someday, so have no idea on the logistics and capacity of doing two expos, races, events, etc. Versus a Thursday/Saturday which I am assuming other than race day everything is there for one event.

Quick question. If they are having two completely separate days for the men and women. Why are they still mixing the qualification slots? I assume the field size would be the exact same for both days so wouldn't that mean there should be say 2k slots available for the women and 2k slots available for the men?

It'd be cost prohibitive to produce and have vendors out there for that amount of time. You'd be looking at two solid weeks of that space.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Long-term, I think that's the goal they are going to move towards.

The 2023 qualification cycle having races set up that way factors in a variety of items: 1.) none of the races that were selected for additional women's slots were sold out already, so it is a sales tactic; 2.) they are races that generally see a much higher female participation rate, so you are going to have more women who are likely to take a Kona slot if they are given the option, and 3.) most of those races are really, really hard either due to the course itself or conditions.

I think we will see evolution of this over time -- my guess would be that more than half the circuit would have additional women's slots for the 2024 qualification cycle, with an eye toward evenly dividing them in the future (e.g., I would imagine that all US and Canada races would have more slots for women, as opposed to say Poland and Kazakhstan -- but work towards offering an even split as participation grows.)

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Well…but then its just turning into WC of those who can afford it and not just the best. Its also my first one. I KQ in 2019 when apparently it was still tough and legit unlike now ;)

The real problem is $$$. I have booked a small house in Waikaloa area in 2019 for $4k for 2 weeks. Kept rolling the reservation…until a month ago when i got an email from VRBO that my rented house has a new owner. From $4k it turned into $9k. I tried to find anything cheaper even far away. I didnt. On top - i have to travel half of the world to race there. Crying looking at the prices. And the strengthening of USD as final nail into the coffin.

Granted - it was never cheap. But with double the field its absurd. Several super strong AGs i jnow dropped the slots due to the cost. It may be a WC going forward but i doubt it will be the WC for the best.

Yes, the standards will change.

There will be, in 2023, a race for x-thousand men on one day and another race for x-thousand women on the next. More women racing on Thursday changes very little for the men racing on Saturday. And the best-trained, fastest athletes will still win.

And yes, at some races, there will be lots and lots of slots for women to race at Kona. But guess what? With women no longer racing on the same day as the men, there will also have to be MORE slots for men as well, to fill out the field that was previously 25-30% women on the single day race.

More slots for everybody. Very cool.

---

Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018

 If we want everything fair why don’t we also split evenly between every age group so every age gets 5 slots, so the 18-24 get the same as 35-39 and same as 65-69, every age group gets 5 slots. How is it fair that the 18-24 and the 65-69 usually only get one slot,while the 35-39 have 8 slots at some races? I feel the 18-24 category for too long have been discriminated based on age and by doing this we will attract more younger people to ironman and also older people. The core market biggest age groups of in the 30-50 range should embrace the change and see this as fair and equitable, and we should definitely change from the unfair % base allocation that has served this sport for 30 years.

IM Frankfurt 2019:

M 45-49 KQ: 9:12 to 9:42, tenth place 9:42, twentieth place 9:55.

F 45-49 KQ: 10:23 to 10:41, tenth place 11:56, twentieth place 12:42.

,
.
Here we have the idea that Ironman IS triathlon.It isn't and women have had no barrier in participating in the sport of triathlon "from the sport of triathlon".

There are hundreds of thousands of women competing in the sport around the world and maybe,just maybe, women in general aren't as obsessed by Ironman as the men are. Just look at the numbers at the Nice 70.3 Worlds when there were different race days for men and women.Despite Ironman's effort at throwing slots at the women via the Women for Tri initiative the end number were still heavily skewed towards the mens race.The women in the sport just didn't want to go.

For years ,the Danskin Tri Series championed the womens only racing scene and seriously they did more for womens participation than Ironman will ever do and yet what happened to that series? Sometimes I think we just have to accept that,just because the idea of equal numbers in Hawaii is awesome,the reality is that there will most likely never be enough genuine and sustained interest from the women in spending stupid amounts of money to go race in the money pit that Kona has become.They seem to be waaaaay smarter than that.

Macca through his Phoenix Foundation/Mana Sport races,The Brownlees thorough their foundation and my old mate,Kiwi ex-pro Brendon Downey through his Triathlon Pink Series here in Oz will do far more for the growth of women in the sport of triathlon than Ironman having two days of racing in Kona.

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

No.

What I said is that you take the premier event, give additional access, and it helps bring the bottom up.

There's two ways to build things (frankly, same as building fitness): you can either push from the bottom, or pull from the top.

The examples you give are those at the ground level. Which is good! So is this. They're both good things.

Also keep in mind that those WFT slots are infinitely more likely to be taken in North America for North American races (which is why that list of 17 events is so heavily skewed.)

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter