stevej wrote:
I think this will be the year an American wins. In order of likelyhood:
Potts
Hoffman
Tim O
Jesse Thomas
Rinny will run away with the women's title. Rhyf doesn't have much left in the tank.
Based on "precedence," only three of the four Americans you listed are possible winners:
- Potts & TO both meet the "previous year's top-4" requirement which has been true EVERY year, except when a prior winner who DNF'ed the prior year - e.g. Stadler 2005 - won; and Stadler is the only one in the past 20+ years to pull off outside-top-4-and-then-win. Mark Allen in 1995 was the last time this happened before.
Most prior winners have only won again after placing in the top-4 the previous year: Reid 2003 (2nd 2002), Macca 2010 (4th 2009), Crowie 2011 (4th 2010). And that's just going back to 2000 (because I'm lazy). Overwhelmingly, the winner comes out of the prior year's top-4. Given Raelert's injury, and Pott's age (he'd be the oldest winner by a year but the oldest first time winner but substantially more than that; I'm fairly certain Mark Allen and Crowie both won at 38 - might be 37 - but both had won multiple times before), you have to think that TO is the most likely candidate. With that said, Tim's top-10 finishes in Kona have ALWAYS come after he's had a strong early season Ironman (2nd Brazil 2015, 1st Brazil 2013, 2nd CdA 2012); the fact that he struggled in Frankfurt is not necessarily indicative of anything, except that - as I said on IMTalk regarding Jan - you do tend to see trends of how athlete's prepare over the course of a season when they do well.
- Jesse meets the "rookie" requirement, but remember, ONLY Luc Van Lierde won as a rookie on the men's side. Betting that you are next LVL is a big ask. On the plus side, Jesse has NEVER lost an Ironman. On the down side, he's never even finished an Ironman where the high temperature was above about 75F (maybe even 70F). So the difference - from a weather standpoint between Wales & Lanzarote, which was atypically cold this year, and Kona is huge. On the plus side, Jesse's biggest win ever - Wildflower #1 - came as a rookie. On the downside, he'd be the heaviest winner since Macca 2010.
Other "data" points:
- Sebastian would be the first person to come from inside the top-10 but outside the top-4 to win the race. Mark Allen 1995 and Stadler 2005 were both DNFs (maybe Mark was a DNS?). But also note that in each of the past two years, the Kona winner has also been the Frankfurt winner. And, overall, the winner at IM Frankfurt tends to do VERY well in Kona. The men's winner in Roth, on the other hand, has not done as well, which - I think - ties into the next little factoid...
- Jan could win, but no one except Hellriegel has raced 3x140.6 in a year and won. On the bright side for Jan, NO ONE has ever WON 3x140.6 IM including the WC in a year - Hellriegel was 4th in Austria (I think) the year that he raced 3 fulls and then won in Kona. As far as his "WR" performance, Andreas Raelert did NOT win Kona the year he set the prior "World Record" in Roth.
Those are just some of my random facts collected. I'm sure I've got more. Just need to taper a bit more and they will come to me. Not necessarily worth anything, but fun to just toss around since you guys are all speculating anyway...
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