Pubes is a Turd....or Troll (whichever you prefer) who cant even read directly from Ironman's Website......



Copied from: http://www.ironman.com/...l-world-athlete.aspx


That being said, it is kind of a "look at me" thing. But not on the level that Pubes makes it.

No, there isn't.

Man buns should be an auto DQ

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

You've just been elevated to gold with that one right there champ.

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http://www.PatGriskusTri.com USAT Certified Race Director
2024 Races: USAT State of CT Age Group Championship/State of CT HS Champs/ CT Club Championship - Sat June 15th (Oly/Du/Sprint) Hopkins Vineyard Tri at Lake Waramaug Saturday July 13th http://www.HopkinsVineyardTri.com

He is only saying this to keep people from putting their stickers on their cars. He wants to be the only one rolling the strip with all those AWA stickers. Read between the lines of the OP. He is super proud of his accomplishments.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

slightly off topic, but.

I have a relative who posts rants about the evils of participation trophies for kids intermixed with photos of his finisher medals from road racing. The irony seems to have escaped him.

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Brian
“Eat and Drink, spin the legs and you’re going to effin push (today).” A Howe

Hey we agree!!!!!......I like Huffandpuff idea of "cash back program"........i do like the, at times, better racking spots....i also feel slightly ashamed of being gold as well but if i could get cash back on races instead of "early entry" to all these races in Asia, now we would be talking. I will be racing less in 2017 due to costs of races and travel, so much for a dentist thing i have going for me.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Yeah. No reason to look at data when you can guess.

What I found reviewing standings was that the AWA Gold standings correlates with the USAT All American standings for the AG reviewed. Top of the AWA Gold matches top of USAT and bottom of AWA Gold is actually a bit higher threshold than USAT All American.

Correlation, not causality.

AA rewards quality. AWA rewards quantity (with a slight bonus for quality, just to confuse things).

AWA is a frequent flyer program.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

I'd be curious to see the number of folks that raced 2+ races and are not AWA. My guess is it's higher than you think.

So true. AA takes you best 2 or 3 races, depending on what events you do. No rewards for doing more than the minimum other than you get to throw out your lowest score(s).

This stuff, whether AA or AWA, is still about getting to our ego's, and getting our money

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

While a frequent flyer program, there is a pretty good correlation to an achievement program.
The 20+ people ahead of me on AWA are faster than I, those behind me generally are slower than I. Yes, some faster guys did not do the three races, but the same is true is all ranking programs.
I was 22nd in my age group for 70.3 in AWA, I was 20 in "their" 70.3 World's.
Do I think I am near 20th in the world, NO. Am I closer to the 80th that I am ranked in USAT, YES!
Does AWA mean much-no. Does it mean something- sure.
And it is a great marketing tool. For some, it seems a motivational tool.

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Team Zoot So Cal

OK, you are making me work. I picked the 2016 M60-64 to simplify things. And to make it more apples to apples, I compared AWA Overall for the U.S. against USAT AA; the very pool that you would expect to have the greatest overlap with USAT rankings. In that age group there were 104 All Americans but 311 AWA United States athletes...indicating to me that is three times easier to get an AWA ranking of some color than an AA ranking. Alternatively, maybe long course racing, and Ironman racing in particular is three times more popular than non long course. Regardless, that 311 included 13 Gold, 141 Silver and 157 Bronze AWA athletes. I found that 9 of the 13 Gold AWA members were AA and I am willing to concede that because Gold only represents 4% of the AWA athletes (at least in that AG), and because there is a decent overlap with AA status, that it is a fair representative of performance. But given that there are more Silver AWA than the entire AA group, I can safely 'guess' that a much greater percentage of Silver AWA athletes are not AA, and an overwhelming percentage of Bronze AWA are not AA. I think that is a fair assessment.

Although I don't particularly care for the program, there is no doubt it is a brilliant business move by WTC, and that many IM consumers love it and their social media badges regardless of what it confers. Maybe the airlines should take a lesson from Ironman and offer similar badges to their customers based on the number of miles they fly. Double points awarded for business class seat purchases and triple points for first class seating. :)

I don't think you can definitively show that across the board for the AWA Gold rankings. I doubt you've even looked into correlation vs. causality for AWA Gold vs USAT AA rankings.

What aspect of the USAT AA rankings rewards quality more than WTC AWA Gold? Where does AWA Gold reward quantity more than USAT AA? Do you have specifics? Both programs use a participant's top THREE race results (though USAT requires 3 tri race results and AWA will rank you with less than 3 races). USAT AA uses the top 10% of AG rankings (I think this used to be 5% with the next 5% receiving AA Honorable Mention) while AWA Gold uses the top 1% AG ranking. Both score participant race results vs. race winner results.

The differences between the programs is that WTC has made the choice to recognize additional levels of participation and performance by including silver (top 5% of AG) and bronze (top 10% of AG). They also break out AWA between all WTC, WTC IM and WTC 70.3 races. So what? As I mentioned above, USAT used to have two levels of All American rankings and then made it easier to achieve AA rank. If this encourages participants to complete more races or work to improve their standings so what? Slowman is always pointing out that our sport is in decline. Any efforts to boost participation are probably a good thing.

I will say that I never paid much attention to USAT rankings. I feel the same way about AWA. However, I will say that WTC goes out of their way to provide these rankings to participants and celebrate their achievements, while USAT publishes this information once a year in a magazine that most of us aren't even interested in receiving. Basically another case of USAT just going through the minimum necessary motions for members.

In the end I don't see a lot of difference between the two ranking programs at the AA and Gold level. The generalizations made about one being more performance oriented than the other haven't been backed up with results data or criteria comparisons. The extended rankings of the AWA levels does reward participation, but I don't see the downside to encouraging more participation in this sport.

Yes. My comments to you were with respect to AWA Gold vs USAT AA. I looked at my AG, M50-54 at 70.3 distance, and didn't see a lot of difference between the top and bottom of each group between the two rankings.

Without looking into it in detail, I would say you're probably correct on the Silver and Bronze AWA vs. USAT AA. After all, 5% and 10% of WTC race participants worldwide is likely a larger pool than the top 5% and 10% of participants in USAT sanctioned races.

The business move is good for WTC and I think it is a good tool to boost participation in the sport, even if it is only WTC race participation. The airlines already have multiple frequent flyer levels and differing reward programs!

No. Not true. Both programs use your top 3 races (for tris). And both programs toss out your bad races.


Here I agree with you. Rankings pander to ego. As for the money, I don't think USAT pushes their rankings program to the point that it generates more participation, while WTC is laughing all the way to the bank!

How does it get our money?

There is no enrollment fees, and no cost to exercise your perks of a separate packet pick up line or rack spot.

I don't believe people are doing extra races to get an AWA level. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that for most people it's just a surprise at the end of the season, but doesn't bear any weight on their race schedule.

And as I said in an earlier post, the people running out to buy AWA branded gear would be buying some other Ironman branded gear were AWA not a thing.

I honestly can't figure out how this is a cash grab by WTC.

And if it keeps even a few people engaged in the sport then all the better.

Honestly, with so many things in the world to hate, and so many more pressing questions (Arrested Development gets cancelled after 3 seasons but some how Bachelor is still on the air), why are people are wasting the emotional energy on a program like AWA? Especially where once you removed the Facebook bragging it seems to be all pros and no cons.

Agreed, the preferred rack spot is a good perk. I was at both Racine 70.3 and Austin 70.3 this year and both races had the swim canceled and they resorted to a TT bike start based on bib numbers. AWA folks had low bib number and, thus, we got to start earlier. My buddy racing with me (same AG, not AWA) had to wait easily 1.5 hours behind me to start because he was so far back in line. Quite an advantage with the temp rising as the minutes go by.

You realize there are triathletes outside the US of A? ;)

I understand why people like this perk; but in the situation you described, the advantage was so great that the athletes did not race under the same weather conditions (not to mention saving 90 mins of nervous energy standing around) but yet were scored against each other in the final standings. I am not against perks, but when they fundamentally alter the playing field I think everyone should have serious concerns.

This made a huge difference at IMMD this year. The guys starting early had no issues on the run, whereas the rest of us starting an hour and a half later had flooding to deal with. Also I totally forgot about those guys racked in the low bib number area and when I got off the bike I only saw 2 other bikes on my rack in my AG area. Figured I was in a really great place coming off the bike. Little did I realize (entirely forgot) that a bunch of faster guys were already off the bike long ago but were racked elsewhere.

However now that I have posted in this thread, I might as well say I am AWA Silver for this year so maybe I'll get a similar advantage at some point. It's all I can really hope for out of this "program"

So how does this preferred racking work? Lets say you are Silver AWA Overall but Bronze for Ironman. When you do an Ironman or 70.3 race which ranking do they use?

Yeah, that is a good point.

Honestly, I don't know exactly. I'm pretty sure it was a binary thing as in either you were AWA or not and if you were then you got preferred spots. I did notice from talking to the guys around me that we were organized by AG.

Hence, the reason I admitted the strange discrepancy between my being 22 in the world, but 80th in the U.S.
I am unaware of a world ranking for amateurs other than AWA. Does ITU have one?

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Team Zoot So Cal