I'm sure if you look at a lot of overseas races they roll down pretty far since Kona is pretty long ways away.

In my experience over the past few years at 40/50 slot races, usually top 7 or 8 guys in the AG show up for KQ slots. After that, there will be some outliers.

Usually after the top guys, 9th and so on don't show up because it doesn't typically roll that far.

You can end up with the "perfect storm" if some of the top guys have qualified/don't want to go and 22nd shows up.

The other scenario is that a slot could have been re-allocated from an older age group and it rolled back to M3034.

Between the initial M3034 callout and the re-allocation, some of the guys may have left (something like this may have helped me pick up my KQ with a 7th in M4549, since 7th in that AG usually means you are watching Kona on ironmanlive.com).

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Since I know him... I can tell you that the 21st AGer doesn't understand just how lucky he is.

If the bloke I met today had shown up. 21 might still be going 22 wouldn't and he clealry never thought it was going that far downdown. He was shocked I think. I felt a little better that he said he thought it was tough on Sunday though

 I can assure you that i truly know how lucky I am with the performance I had; even with a broken bike and continued to race with 30 plus miles left on it. The only thing you can control in a race is your attitude and that's exactly what i did.

-Louvet

chapeau - going to try again next year? I signed up in the post finish haze

Interesting, in IM Vichy (France) max rolldown was 2 slots in F20 something. Most AGs didnt roll single slot

Congrats to all those who qualified, regardless of how "low" in the standings they may have finished.
I'm told that the hills on course are pretty brutal and it sounds like the guy in question had some serious obstacles on the day.

I sometimes wonder if there needs to be a revision on the rule that you have to be present at the awards ceremony with bank card in hand to claim a slot.
With Sundays being the usual day for races, many age groupers having a long journey home and only managing to get the Monday off work, it may not be logistically feasable for them to stick around at the venue until Monday afternoon before departing.
This was the situation for me when I raced Wales last week (not that I KQ'd).

I think we'd see a much more representative Kona field if successful people were contacted via telephone or email in the days after the race and had 24 hours to respond & pay the Kona fee before forfeiting.
If they don't pay then the next person is contacted and gets 24 hours, so on and so forth.
If you're fairly near the top of your age group, then keep an eye on that mailbox!

Not that I was anywhere near the front of anything - except perhaps the BOP on the bike, but I was so worried about the hills in advance that by the time I'd ridden them all I knew that I could have done better - not great, but certainly faster than I did.

Its basically 20-ish k flat, short sharp hill, gentle hill, long hill to 70-80k, flat, small hills or downhill on the way back - its a fabulous ride, aside from the part between the airport at the start of the climbs which is a bit industrial, it is so scenic, that said when you're ambling along at my pace you can take it all in

Andrewmc- I wish! I saved up for quite some time for this event to race in front of my family and grandfather. I would def return someday but the logistics to travel there makes it somewhat difficult unless you can make it into a 2 week vacation. Will likely be doing Texas, Whistler or MT since Placid just sold out.. Best of luck next year! I miss those decents when it went smoothly for me.

-Louvet