I actually appreciate you bringing up this topic, but your argumentative tone pretty much just made me roll my eyes and want to skip over this thread entirely. But for the sake of those saying women should participate more on this thread, I'll share my perspective. I think others have listed good reasons why the start lists for these late season IMs are light. If you're not going to Kona 2016, why do an IM that gives points towards 2016 Kona instead of one a month later for 2017 Kona points? I think in general, more men choose to take their pro card knowing they'll never be in contention to go to Kona as a pro. Seems like most women who take their pro card are working towards going to Kona, or else they'll stay and race as an AGer. Honestly, I think the whole system is fucked because Kona is the holy grail of everything.

To your other point about the Rev3 race. I am really pissed at pro women for that one. What a great opportunity Rev3 presented, how hard is it to show up and race an olympic? The Rev3 series is the only reason I'm planning to take my pro card next year (as long as it continues to exist...) because I feel like I've got to do everything I can to support these opportunities when they do come along. I don't care if you don't consider olympic distance your "thing" or if this race fits neatly into your season plan, pros (men or women) should make a point to show up to support the Rev3 series or quit complaining about the lack of prize money races! Hopefully this year was a building year, and maybe more pros will plan Rev3 into their seasons next year.

My (mostly male) cycling team planned a local circuit race with 2 totally separate women's races (usually we're crammed in with the master's or cat 5s) with awesome payouts. We have a decent amount of women locally, but could only get 4 women to come out for the cat 1/2/3 race. All season these women complain about not getting separate fields and not getting good payouts, then don't show up to support the events that offer these things because they aren't the "big deal" events of the summer. I can get all "rah rah women's rights!" when that's warranted, but sometimes I have to admit it's us women that aren't helping our own cause. Time to step up ladies!

i see a failure building in this thread and that it is to be a pro female you have to race in 70.3 or longer. how about some ITU women chat it up in here? too bad good olympic distance series races get killed off in the USA easy. what about races like alcatraz, or out in europe? also why limit yourself just to tri and not single sport races? my wife is an amature and is winning cash at run races in mexico.... she wins 3000 pesos with an easy 1:30 while for me to get that much i need to run 1:10

If it's not really that important it's hard to understand all the complaints about prize money. Kalmar was also a women pro only race and Copenhagen a male pro only race so they were not competing for the same field.(And I might add that Copenhagen had a pretty good male pro field the next day)

Regarding sponsorship money there are so many Ironman branded races these days that an Ironman win alone is worth a lot less in potential sponsorship money than winning 20k outright. The purse in Kalmar was big enough that it's mind blowing not more pros showed up imo.

bjorn wrote:

Same story at Ironman Sweden last weekend. 1st place was 20k usd and only 5 pro women on the start line. They started first 15min ahead of the age groups in front of a pretty big audience and it just didn't look good. There are too many races but I can't understand why some of them don't take the chance when there's actually a pretty good prize purse offered. They can't help themselves sometimes it seems like.

Bjorn, to me this says a few things:

1. Most pro triathletes are not in the sport to make money off the sport. They are in the sport of lifestyle. Competition, travel, fitness, camaraderie, meeting people from different parts of the world. Essentially all the reasons age groupers are in the sport. Many pros have given up lucrative financially rewarding careers at a desk for a short period in life to do this sport "as a pro"
2. Given the above, qualifying for Kona as a pro is more important than the paycheque from an event that may or may not cover cost of doing that event. Maybe better to save it for later when the points count
3. Pros will pick races the same way age groupers pick them. Is this somewhere I want to go? If I have to spend time and money to go somewhere, then when and where. How much is it going to cost me? Is it convenient for me to get to?

Given all of the above, maybe there are not enough pros left over for IM Kalmar given there is Frankfurt, Zurich, Maastricht, Roth, Copenhagen all in the physical and temporal vicinity to also go to. North America pros have Vineman, Whistler, Lake Placid, Tremblant in the same time, so unless they want a vacation to Sweden, they are not going to get on a plane to go that far and "race east" (which as you know is a bit of a nightmare on a short trip....racing west is easier).


Having said that, as Slowman pointed out, Prize money is not the biggest prize. Saying you are IM Kalmar champion or IM Tremblant champion can hopefully be leveraged for more sponsorship!

I THINK the entire context of this thread was related to long course racing and the lack of pro women at specific long course events. I believe women's fields are deep and well populated at ITU races. That's not the issue.

what needs to be done in effect, is open prize money to AG women, not pros only. i think it will bring more competition... say some local xc runner girl who also can swim... might get her hooked on tri and build pro fields up like that... pretty much how gwen got into it, most winning-est cash female past 3 years

what needs to be done in effect, is open prize money to AG women, not pros only. i think it will bring more competition... say some local xc runner girl who also can swim... might get her hooked on tri and build pro fields up like that... pretty much how gwen got into it, most winning-est cash female past 3 years

And here we go again. Just after a few posts, it starts to get personal, and emotional, rather that everyone has a right an opinion, and should have the respect from others
to stay the high ground, but on ST, never, which is why so many do not post. They have better things to do then deal with bullies.

Here is the problem. Let's take Daniela Ryf as an example. She chose Roth since it paid the most. Others could have thought the same way. Let's use Ryf again. She needed to validate for Kona. She could have waited for Kalmar, but what if she has a mechanical etc. So she goes to Zurich the weekend after Roth, but was also registered for Maastricht the following weekend."just in case". So there were pros that chose a race earlier with no road to Kona and good $$$ (Roth), or they chose a race that was earlier (Zurich/Maastricht) with less prize money with a road to Kona. Kalmar or Tremblant were "last minute" road to Kona paths and if you did not car about road to Kona "that much" the other races offered a better prize offering while still giving a sliver of hope to Kona.

Mary Beth Ellis is a good example of a last moment "road to Kona" athlete. She did Maastricht and Tremblant which put her over the top for Kona and she got decent prize money out of both. But how many are in that boat that they are good enough that the races are a certain paycheque. I don't think the pro women know "a priori" who will show up. There could be 5 at the start line, there could be 20.

Really embarrassing that you didn't check the prize-money for those races and realized that it's likely that not even the winner would break even if traveling from Europe, Oceania or North America.

There are not enough female pros for the number of races.

Or, another angle-- it's an argument in favor OF 50 Women to Kona? After the first Kona cut in July, there were a handful of women still in the running for the final, second cut Kona slots and all of them raced one of those late July or August races. For any pro women NOT going to Kona but looking forward to possibly qualifying for 2017, it really didn't make a whole lot of sense to be racing in late July or August where the points would go towards 2016 KPR rankings and essentially be thrown away.

Obviously this is the same with men, but because only 35 women qualifying to Kona, the reality has been that for women not racing Kona this year, it'll very possibly take 3 Ironmans in the 2017 KPR season to amass enough points to get in. That's how it's played out the past couple years. As a female pro, I've seen a lot of my peers completely destroy themselves racing 3 Ironmans to qualify and then Kona on top of that-- many have lost full seasons afterwards due to injury/ fatigue/ burnout.

If Kona were on my mind for 2017, I wouldn't throw in a August Ironman just for the possibility of a paycheck and no 2017 points because I'd know I possibly had a whole bunch more Ironmans ahead of me starting in September. As it is, I AM one of the female pros who showed up to an August Ironman, but I have no desire to try to KQ next year, don't really even like the Ironman distance, but thought I should do one for "fun" and the possibility of a paycheck. I think a lot of my peers are more focused on Kona. (And a lot are also over in Australia getting ready for 70.3 Worlds)

But, I could be wrong.

On the flip side of that coin is that 8/10 men will take a pro card if they qualify for one. maybe, maybe 5/10 females will take their pro card. I'd be willing to be it is slightly <50%.