This is gonna be good.

Meanwhile, on Twitter....

What's going on here?

Is shit rolling down hill to Lucy by way of Ironman CEO? Maybe Lucy needs to defect to ST and expose this terrible injustice.

Lucy, you are safe here.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

It seems that some women are the biggest opponents of equality. Funny that.

>It seems that some women are the biggest opponents of equality. Funny that.

How so? Like the OP I don't know what this is really about.

http://www.trirating.com/...tes-to-the-kpr-2015/

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

These tweets are over 2 weeks old? I think Lucy got her panties all twisted without knowing what Ironman was doing.
This is a tweet from the next day:
I only know 1/2 the story and nothing agreed yet.Expect i should have restrained myself yesterday but i was pretty angry

thanks

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I don't think this is what got her upset. I think it may have been about possibly having more women to equal the men, hence changing qualification process 8 weeks before Kona. Saying they are ditching pro race post Kona doesn't effect this years qualification.

She was confused, thought that the announcements about 2015 applied this year.

At least that is the impression I got wasting my time scrolling her Twitter feed.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

Everyone, meet today's misogynist, who would equate opposing a change in mid season qualification rules with opposing equality.

Imagine if you will, that you did an Ironman a month out from Kona to get the points you needed, to find out days later that you didn't need those points after all. Now you will be competing against athletes who are fresh and didn't go through that ordeal.

Assuming that is what her complaint is about, it is totally warranted and logical.

Mid season rule changes are the fucking worst. See - UCI and shifter minutiae TT rules this year. I swear I will write strongly worded emails to the guy who made that happen if I ever find out who it was.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Since I've already been branded a misogynist, then I'll go ahead and say that even if I don't know you personally, you sound like a little bitch.

This could get interesting.

The opportunity was given to the women to have equal slots for this year assuming there was a pretty universal consensus among the top women that they actually wanted them.

This was all part of the push for equal slots. There was a meeting with many of the women - and ALL women were given the opportunity to join via conference call - that was initiated and set up by the women after IM Boulder. Rachel Joyce - the "rachel" Andrew refers to in his tweet - was spearheading the effort to have the meeting and then afterward collecting the women's input. Basically, if the women - as a whole - wanted equal slots this year, they could have them, with the recognition that some women might have planned their seasons different had they known.

So there was no "moving of the goal posts." The women were given the opportunity to choose for themselves whether or not they wanted the goal posts moved this year. As a whole, they decided they did not want that.

Part of the requirement was that ALL women in the top-50 (and Rebekah Keat actually reached out all the way down to 70) had to be given the chance to weigh in. So, exactly what Lucy said happened. It just didn't come directly from Andrew. It came from Rachel (and Rebekah). Guessing Lucy got an email from Rachel probably soon after she fired off that tweet.

Basically just a good example why if - as Lucy admits - she only had 1/2 the story, probably best not to go ranting on twitter about it before you have the whole story.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Thanks Jordan.

Out of interest, why didnt they go for it?

Surely more women on the start line would be better. More opportunity for exposure for their sponsors etc... experience on the championship course. etc...

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Better for who? Only the women who have missed the cutoff, not those already qualified. Theory being they all would have raced differently given 50 slots vs 35 if that was the original plan. And all the top 50 needed to say yes. Why would those who planned their season under one set of rules and qualify agree to change things 2 months out from Kona to help others?

Jordan, thanks for the insight, always good to get information from somebody that actually knows a story, as opposed to the rounds of speculation that usually happen here. That said, do you think this means that for next year they will expand the field of women? Hard to imagine anybody objecting to it as long as it is laid out now.

I know your question was addressed to Jordan but I have to think that asking the female pros if they would like it this year (i.e. changing the game midway during the year) has to mean that next year there are equal male and female pros. Is that 50 each? I dont know.

Women who have raced late in the year to slide into the top 35 might not like letting women in 49th place with fresh legs get to Kona. The reality is "how many of the women in 36-50th place are really prize money threats at Kona.

If the women turned down the offer for equal slots for men and women, shame on them. Sorry, but we've been fighting for equal treatment of men and women in this sport since Erin Baker stood up for equal prize money back in 1990 (and rightfully so). I think it was wrong for WTC to have less women slots at Kona than men. But hey, if the women pros want to bicker among themselves and not take the even number of slots on offer for Kona this year, then they probably don't deserve 50 slots. Seems like a few women who are in the top 35 are being more selfish about their Kona finish position (likely not in the money anyway) than thinking about what helps in the long run.

At least that is what i am reading into it. Then you wonder why pros get hammered for not being able to articulate their value, when they can't even agree to take something that is good for the overall pro field. It seems they care about "me" more (in the moment) than "us" (over time). At some point in the future turning away a better framework due to ones selfish needs today is certain to backfire when measured against the future "selfish needs". A bigger pie for any market is always better. The pie might be more prize money, more Kona slots whatever, but bigger is always going to be better over time.

It is hard to say for sure why they didn't go for it. Overwhelmingly, the vote from the women solicited was not this year. The details put forth for additional slots were that there needed to be a majority consensus from the first round of qualifiers, and that consensus was not this year. There was also a rider on the vote. And that rider was that if equal slots were voted, the women would participate in a one-day event focusing on women's issues. The same can not be said for the men who qualified for Kona, there is no special request for them.

Do I think that more-equal slots would have sent the right message? Yes, absolutely. I had to ask myself how the racing habits of the girls who qualified in the first round, or even the second round might have changed if the goal posts were moved. I could only find 1, maybe 2, women who would NOT have had to race the last weekend of July qualifying. But, I am not a female, so I don't get a vote. I I also don't think that it's necessarily fair to say, you can vote on these spots, but we've got you for a day sometime in the year. I can agree that yeah that provides 'value' but at the same time it's not required of the men.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

I agree with you. But I think the general logic followed Jack's thinking - it wasn't "fair" to the women who followed the system all year to make the change. I think the idea was also that the remaining slots would have been handed out more arbitrarily. Some athletes said that they would have raced less if they had only had to be top-50 rather than top-35. Other athletes - further outside the cut for 35 - might have raced more.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

It's possible, but more complicated now. The long term policy was always going to be a bigger issue - with consideration of the pro men, the RD, etc. It should be announced pretty soon though.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

That's a pretty harsh take on it. Another perspective is that they were patient and far-sighted, and believed that changing the rules mid-season was not inherently fair, and that waiting for next year for equal slots is the best all around solution.