There is an artificial scarcity because there were something like 1200 people who qualified for Kona 2023 before Nice was announced for 2023 who got to defer for 2024. So basically it is like all of the qualifiers for this round are competing to enter a 1300 starter race.

Many of the faster competitors have already qualified for Kona, it's not like they aren't racing this year. I qualified for Kona in 2022 in Penticton. My age ground the spots went to 1, 2, 3, no rolldown. I'm doing Arizona in a few weeks and hope to finish in a spot that would qualify for Kona, though obviously it will skip me and rolldown.

This likely will be a common occurrence, hence there will be more of a rolldown this year than last. Will it be different than normal years, probably, but there are still 2500 men going to Kona, so it's not really a "scarcity".

Just quickly dropping in to say that I know a woman who finished 15th in her age group and got a Nice slot.
I don't know if that indicates anything, but it was interesting to see.

at IM Malaysia many women slots for Nice 2024 WC were not assigned. we will see another big disgrace. I hope they understand the message

at IM Malaysia many women slots for Nice 2024 WC were not assigned. we will see another big disgrace. I hope they understand the message

What's the other disgrace and what message?

What do you mean by "received slot as a gift"? As far as I know all qualifiers still have to pay.

Were you in Nice?
I was there spectating and it was a really amazing event and the top athletes completed the course in very strong times considering how much tougher the bike course is vs Kona. Not a "disgrace" at all. I raced in Kona and the advantages of Nice are evident. Keep in mind I'm the kind of athlete who performs much better in a place like Kona rather than a place like Nice.

Anyhow it seems that you're talking for yourself. I respect that you may not like the idea of a WC in Nice but you must realise that not everyone thinks the same as you.

In fact - and bridging back to the topic of this thread - I'd go as far as saying that i'd be thrilled to see a WC in Portugal if it started rotating locations. Cascais would make a superb location. A unique and beautiful course, great organisation and really well connected via Lisbon airport.

I don’t agree with your interpretation of “the message”.

Nice put on a fantastic race with much better atmosphere than all you doubtfires realised. The woman have all said they need their own race day.

Perhaps the message is that the cost of getting to Nice for Asia continent racers is far higher and therefore in a cost of living crisis there is a decline in demand. Especially after an almost full womens race last week.

Nice is a great race, dont take me wrong. I am talking in a WC point of view. If you want to run a WC somewhere, you should not see slots not assigned because people dont want to go. It has to be something super challenging, only for the best in the world.
Then we can talk about many great locations in the world for Ironman. That's a different story.
If they organize a WC in Portugal and only me and you show up, it is a disgrace, you agree? but the location and the race itself is amazing.

Please try to correlate things properly in this discussion. I am not talking about my point of view: i am bringing facts, many slots could not be allocated in Nice and many other will not be next year in the women race.
Do you have an explanation?

55-59 rolled down--because he just won IM Copen/slot, IM Barc, and IM Port all in 9 week's time. There is 1 slot roll down for sure. Yeah, that's some serious "badassery" there...he will be a fav to win '24 (hope he does anyhow), I think along with a couple others.

he was a Pro some years ago ...

You appear to have a very specific idea of what a WC is which is simply based on how the IM WC have been run until 2019. It doesn't reflect how WC are organised in most sports (or even in non-Ironman triathlon), especially if we are talking about Age group / Masters.

I won't go into details of how those WC are run (many events don't even have a qualifying standard - whereas to get a Nice WC slot even considering rolldown you should have at least completed an IM in the previous year, which is already a qualifying standard and more than other sports).

Anyhow at the end of the day it really doesn't matter how many people attend (do you imply that the 70AG title is less important than the 50 because there's less people?) and how they were selected (if we look within and outside of our sport there's enough models to discuss this forever) as long as whoever is interested in the WC AG title offered by the organisation (Ironman in this case) is there.

Even the comment of the watering down of the race that often gets thrown out has no impact on the race at the front. Also, it's very easy to demonstrate that a higher participation increases the competitiveness of the race because any selection method will exclude competitive athletes (one of many examples: some of the best teams in soccer world cup are excluded by the qualification system pretty much every time).

It may be your idea to run WC a certain way and to value the race based on a specific slot allocation formula and it's ok for you to have this idea, just don't expect everybody to necessarily share that same idea. There isn't a single absolute way to run an AG WC.