mattsurf wrote:
I've posted on various forums about this many times. To be honest the amount of abuse I have received following these posts is not nice. However, fwiw here is my suggestion 1. Kona is W/C venu every 4 years, qualification only, no legacy spots no celebrity spots
2. Hold Kona Every year, in non W/C years, Celebs, Legacy and normal entry by application - maybe similar to Challenge Roth, that sells out in 5 mins
3. Rotate W/C for non Kona years, Nice, Lanza, South Africa, Australia, Mexico etc, would be amazing, and would have no trouble filling every spot through qualification
Why? Different courses suit different athletes, Kona suits a certain type of athlete. Kona is unbelievably expensive for everyone outside the US, by rotating W/C, it would open it up to more AG athletes, also, October is almost impossible for people in some professions such as teachers. By not having to qualify for Kona every year, it would make Kona available to normal AG athletes
Would this devalue Kona? in my view no, Kona would still be the event that Pros want to win, and it would still have an elite entry list, it would just not be the W/C event.
I agree with you on this except for one point: hold Kona as the WC every 5 years, instead of every 4 years. This allows a few things to happen.
- It allows you to hold the WC in Kona on big round numbered years. e.g. 45, 50, 55, 60, etc year anniversaries of the sport. Use those years to throw a big celebration bash where it all began.
- You can properly rotate the WC around on each continent, with your other 4 years. Within each cycle, North America gets 1 year, Europe gets 1 year, Asia/AUS/NZ gets 1 year and then the other can be South America or Africa/Mid-East. As an example only - I only picked continents like that since that's where the sport is currently strongest (pick your own groupings), but a 5 year cycle allows you to have 4+1 instead of a 3+1.