At some point this will happen, we are slowly moving into staggered starts. Even at Port Mac IM this year, it is a rolling start...
Good for the sport!

That will make is a calmer start for the smaller fast age group women swimmers without having to be worried about being pummelled by men, however, they will need to pull more of their water and push more wind on the bike....it likely ends up favouring the slower women swimmers as you pointed out.

Dev

Wow! Never thought they'd do something like that at Kona. Advantage to the slower swimmers but only if it's men first and then women.

Agree the lady fish will have less incentive now..

NBC's shots of the mass start -which are pretty iconic- will take a hit.. 1500 guys and 500 ladies in two starts is slightly less epic I suppose.

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Coaching - Future Endurance

1500 person start is equally iconic to the 1500 person start through the tail end of the 80's, all of the 90's and most of the 2000's!!!

I thought they'd at least leave that race alone. Keep dumbing things down, Ironman.

I wonder how long the time interval between starts will be. If the women start second...I can't imagine that the lead women will have very much fun making their way through the main pack of male swimmers (the ones swimming 1:05-1:15). Unlike other races where the swim field gets strung out pretty quick...at Kona...there is a very high concentration of people that swim relatively the same speed (between 1:05 and 1:15).

ETA: when the separated the men and women start at Honu last year, it was a 7 minute difference for men and women.

What exactly are they "dumbing" down??

Indeed :) you're right

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Coaching - Future Endurance

Heard this as well.

Heard they are doing this to reduce the drafting that goes on at Kona.

Worst decision I have seen Ironman make since competing/interest in Ironman.

It's stupid, swim wave starts, really? At Kona?

Soft.

If I were ever in charge.....

I would have waves of 250 or so, every couple minutes.

The waves would be seeded such that wave 1 is fastest swimmers, wave 2, next fastest, etc.

Some formula of swim time from your qualifying race, swim place from your qualifying race, and number of minutes behind the swim leader from your qualifying race, would make the waves match up close enough.

I think it's a good step to help the woman have a much more fair race. Lot's of fast AG women get mixed up in the men.

Men typically hate getting passed by women on the bike. They surge over and over until they finally blow up to avoid getting passed.

It also makes it safer by making the swim less dense. This reduces the chances of getting a kick to the head or a fist to the side of the head.

The drafting at some WTC races is absurd, this will help string things along.

You need to accept that in order to make the race more fair for everyone, many IM's are going to have to change how they do the starts.

Why are you against fair racing?

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Not against fair racing. (Not sure where you came up with that)

If your racing Kona you shouldn't be worried about dense swims where there is going to be contact. Isn't that part of the "rush" of an Ironman, the mass swim either racing in it or watching it go off? Especially in Kona.

If Ironman is that concerned with drafting then they should have more draft officials/refs on the bike. Or would that hurt their bottom line too much?

So because Ironman can't effectively officiate the race they are changing the actual race?

Cheaters are going to cheat. I don't think a drafter cares if they are drafting off of a woman or man. I also wonder if this separate gender waves would minimize the advantage of strong female cyclists. If you are a chick and are starting behind the dudes, doesn't that give you more opportunity to use the sling shot maneuver to conserve energy or increase speed?

The best swim start/most fair swim start I've seen is IM Germany - Frankfurt. They allow people, who think that they are fast swimmers, to submit their swim time from a prior IM. They take 250(?) of the fastest submitted times and put those folks in their own waves. It's pro then fast swimmers then the rest of the field.

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

I think they ought to start the women 30 min ahead and let the guys chase them:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Agreed! I must be old, but we used to shoot the gun, and the first across the line won. Purity sure was nice. No one cried about it not being fair. Soft.

So how do you sort out the problem with 1100 athletes leaving the water within 15 minutes of each other? 1100 athletes, all separating by 10 meters, do the math. The drafting isn't a problem with the number of officials, its with the density on the bike course.

Also with other qualifying races having rolling starts or wave starts, how does that mean Kona HAS to be a mass start?

They tried this lays year at Honu, and it was a disaster for the fast female swimmers, and did nothing to reduce drafting. The fast women had to swim their way through the huge pack of men that started before them. The women started five minutes after the men. Shelley Harper had the second fastest swim in the race overall (only Pete Jacobs had a faster time, by a few seconds. So, she literally had to swim through about 1500 age group men.

It's a terrible idea for Kona, and I hope they reconsider.

First off I'm not a fan of wave starts ... much prefer the mass start. However I don't see much choice especially for Kona. I think giving the women a separate start is the first step towards wave starts at Kona. No other real choice with nearly half the field exiting the water between 55 to 70 minutes and lots of stronger riders, additional draft marshalls won't make any difference. There's simply not enough road to squeeze them all in without drafting.

Times change and I can see wave starts coming for Hawaii.

Won't the faster women swimmers now just ride with the slightly slower male swimmers? Same train effect just with different men. Maybe it changes their swim tactics a bit.

I can hear the groans of disapproval by the two female triathletes in my household. I'm joining them.

If you have to stagger your starts, do it by qualifying time, qualifying swim time, age-group or whatever. Part of the joys in triathlon, for me, is the chance to rub shoulders with competitors of both sexes. At the recent Israman half-distance, I spent the bike-leg chasing my girlfriend's relay rider - highlight of the race, as far as I'm concerned. At the Ironman AG level, there are so many women who are a match for the men at the less-pointy-end, and I see no reason to separate them.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

I reckon it won't be long til they expand transition into the King Kam car park to allow for more athletes too. The size of the pier is always mentioned as the limiting factor in athlete numbers.
More waves, more bike racking space... more $$$$ for WTC

I think its laughable to suggest its being done to address drafting. Drafting by the faster women is a minor issue. This will do nothing to reduce the drafting by the 1500 men.

They'll probably toss in something about making the swim 'safer'. Because forcing faster people- regardless of gender- to swim behind slower people seems safer than having a bunch of people of similar abilities swim together. Once you believe that this format is 'safer', especially for the womens, how will you argue against that? Why do you want people to drown? Why do you hate womens? Would somebody please think of the children?

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