12th overall age grouper. I thought that's what we were talking about.

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Proud Member of Chris McDonald's 2018 Big Sexy Race Team "That which doesn't kill me, will only make me stronger"
Blog-Twitter-Instagram-Race Reports - 2018 Races: IM Florida 70.3, IM Raleigh 70.3, IM 70.3 World Championships - South Africa, IM North Carolina 70.3

Not true. It rolled down to the next woman in the AG, not the 59th.

Believing anything on facebook is like trusting a fart in an Ironman....better not.

Would the slot that rolled to his AG roll to his AG if it was wetsuit legal or not allowed at all?

Yeah, I don't know. Probably not.

Yeah, that was me, thanks.
I learned a few lessons on the way to the run, but had a decent run once I got there.

And Kny, your'e not helping with the algorithm stuff...it's still giving me the 'woulda, coulda, shoulda'.

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I think at the end of the day the slot allocation in the wetsuit optional race is more reflective of who all are racing for KQ. If it was an all westuit swim, those guys are not racing for Kona and artificially pad the slot allocation anyway. In a wetsuit optional race since those that go without ws are actually racing for Kona, those are the real number of racers vs. Participants and having slot allocation based on racers is much better anyway.

I think they should combine some of the older age groups, something like 65+ is one age group. As it stands there were 17 men getting 3 spots and in the women it could be 60+ as there were 14 of them competing for 3 spots.

I'm certainly not going to argue that the older age groups should not be over-represented, but the AGs that deserve less than one slot so get the minimum of one have really benefited by the expansion of races and the reduction of slots per race. When there are 40 slots to give at a race rather than 120, the sparsely populated AGs are receiving more of an over-percentage than they deserve than they used to get 120. And, the increase in the number of races means this over-allocation is happening 50 times rather than 15.

I think different races should be deemed the Kona qualifiers for different AGs and simply stop having slots at all at some races for some AGs. It just starts to get stupid when you are down to 30 and 40 slots.

I think if you do that, rather than combine, have some races where it is 65-69 lots only, no slots for 70+, other races 70-74, other races 75+. This way you don't allocate 3 slots to those three age groups in every race and 2 slots can flow to 35-44 range. It would make things much more fair as races proliferate and would not artificially over allocate to the oldest age groups. Quite frankly, I would like to see more slots go to 20-34. If you are going to over allocate, let's over allocate to the young athletes who are the future of the sport and will keep it more healthy. Every 20-34 Kona finisher has a good impact on his local community, I would say more so than someone 65+. The 65+ guy while he might inspire his immediate family, is often not involved in the local community to the same degree as the younger athlete. I know this "seems" like age discrimination, but if you're gonna over allocate, over allocate to the sport's future. If not, just allocate to the age group with the most athletes. That in itself may or may not be the best allocation. As Brian Keast has pointed out to me, in his age group (55-59) there are all the same fast guys as when he was racing 35-39. No one retired and they are all just as fast, but the slots have gone down to by 5-8 slots compared to 20 years ago. Whereas in the 40-44 there are many there who will not be competitive but pad the age group totals. Sounds like no perfect way.

Dev, just to be clear, I think that there should be one age group either 60 or 65 + and they would only get 1 spot.

As for the suggestion by some others to make only certain races have Kona slots, if I were WTC, I would be very reluctant. At the start line only a few people really have a chance at a spot, but when people sign up I think a lot of them plan on Qualifying. Take that away from some races and I think there would be a significant drop in attendance.

Ultimately, I think they'll have to overhaul the qualification system once there are 5-10 more qualifying races. Lots of options: combine age groups, introduction of races without qualifier slots, points system, etc. Personally, I favor concentrating the slots in fewer races (and correcting the errors in the calculation, while they're at it.) The popular races will still sell out without slots: how many entrants really have the ambition of qualifying?

While I think combining AG makes a lot of sense, it seems like this 5 year incremental system is too engrained.

And the point system would inevitably reward people with money and/or those that happen to live close to multiple races, both of which are counter to the spirit of KQ (though unfortunately very lucrative for WTC, which is why I think they'll chose this option.)

We discussed this in some other thread, but ideally you'd wipe slots out of most of the races and concentrate them into 10-15 races worldwide (say 100-150 slots per race for a total for 1500). Then take the other 800 and make them part of the road to Kona via all races through some points system to be defined. The current system would OBVIOUSLY need tweaking for this, but all races would be part of the road to Kona, they just would not have "immediate" allocation.

Keep in mind, back in the day, we only have 6 IM's with Kona slots, each with 125-225 slots. The rest of the slots went to around 20 70.3's with 20-30 slots each.

the guy in 5th took it. I know because I was 6th and in the back of the room praying he didn't. Hard to be so close and not get it but that's racing. If my aunt had a d!ck she'd be my uncle, but she doesn't.

I know the website isn't updated to confirm slots yet, but is 40 slots for sure or is that normal for non-NA championship IM races?

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John