I don't have any experience of running events, I'm sure others who have can add their expertise, but it seems to me that making such changes at short notice would pose significant logistical difficulties. Are the volunteers who were due to help on Saturday available to help at a second race on Sunday instead? If not, where are the additional volunteers going to come from at 4 days notice? Will the authorities allow the change in planned road closures? What happens to competitors who were due to race on Saturday and travel home on Sunday, if they can't change their plans?

Add to this that 3-4 days out the weather forecast can still be unreliable, so it's entirely possible that if they made all these changes the worst of the weather may not end up hitting until Sunday.

From the Official Fb page of IM Italy:

We can't wait to welcome athletes back to Cervia this weekend. 😍
⚠️ Please note, due to predicted strong winds over the race weekend, athletes planning to race with rear disc wheels are advised to bring a non-disc rear wheel option when traveling to the event. See you soon!

So the race will start regularly.

0% chance of them moving the full to Sunday. Most participants likely flying out on Sunday. Organizers will rather have a 10k run- short bike - marathon if need be if conditions are totally dire but they need to have some sort of event which allows them not to give out refunds.

Agree. Wind are expected to start beeing strong in the late morning so i suppose the race will start regularly except for disc wheels (maybe). It won'be funny riding most of the bike leg trying to make the bike going straight under a storm.

Sadly I shipped the bike a week ago and only have a disc. I am usually not worried even in strong winds though, as long as the front wheel profile is shallow. Hope they don’t forbid them outright otherwise I can’t start.

For what it's worth, we had a late thunderstorm during IM Italy last year. For me the rain started at the foot of the second trip up to Bertinoro. By the time I got to the top, the music was still bumping but it was raining so hard that the village had cleared out; kind of eerie with not one spectator to be seen. The ride off that hill was super sketchy too. Rolling down a river on a TT bike with rim brakes and carbon wheels was an unforgettable experience.

The E55 (raised expressway) does shed the water nicely but after turning back on SP254, the road through the salt flats, that section floods. For me, good portions of that stretch back to Cervia was right down the middle as the road was awash from almost the center to well past the shoulder.

I am really hoping the weather holds for you (and everyone) doing Italy this year.

The problem is that, if weather forecast are right, all the bike leg will be under showers with strong winds, rain has expected to start many hours before the swim start.

Tomorrow's (saturday) race, full distance, has just been canceled altogether

Cancelled or postponed until Sunday?

What we know: Ironman will not happen on saturday.

IM say 70.3 and 5150 should happen as scheduled on sunday, and that they are working hard to fit the IM on sunday too.

I’m sure they are working hard to avoid giving any refunds.

Just read on tri247 that the full is happening on the Sunday now as well as the 70.3.

This aged well…

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

I’d be delighted to admit that I was wrong and race on Sunday. They haven’t confirmed yet. If people from full distance get out of the water between 830 and 945 (assuming most are between 1 and 2h 15 mins) that means they will return to transition between say 12 and 1545. 70.3 was going to start at 12 so peak of people in transition will be between 1230 and 1. Not sure how you manage people getting into transition from bike and swim at the same time, unless they build a transition which is 2x the size tomorrow during the mother of all storms. Anyways if they manage that they will have earned my entry fee. And special prize to residents who get roads closed with no notice. It may be a draft fest, but I’ll enjoy racing!

Update: 5150 might not happen after all.

Latest news: full distance moved from saturday to sunday and 5150 cancelled. 5150 transition area given to full

A draft fest

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiqIehzDiVK/

The first 3 AG finishers are in 8:1x which is way too fast even considering drafting. Maybe the course was shorter as well?

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Слава Україні 🇺🇦✊

I was thinking that as well. There was over 10 AG sub 3 hour marathons and the fastest was 2:42

Bike 108-109 miles & run short of 26 miles per Strava. Know someone who raced it. Looks pancake flat & like they had good weather. Good recipe for fast racing.

definitely it was: according to Strava, people averaged 23MPH on 150 watts

A draft fest

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiqIehzDiVK/ //

Yes, but they could have all split up a couple minutes later, probably just lonely and wanted to say hey to their buddies...

dcpinsonn wrote:

Bike 108-109 miles & run short of 26 miles per Strava. Know someone who raced it. Looks pancake flat & like they had good weather. Good recipe for fast racing.

That was a good time! :)
Very good!

Anyone know how the Kona slot Rolldown went today?

The swim course was about right.
The bike course was 5km short due to roadworks.
The run course was 500m short of 42km according to my watch.
The transition was about 1km long though..

Anyway, there were huge drafting packs for MOP triathletes, BUT the front riders were about clean (some small groups more or less 12 meters apart).
I am hugely impressed by the run speed of AGs though, it’s getting insanely fast.

They didn’t do it live, they’ll send emails.

LOL

You'll be laughing but back several years ago when I participated in this race I literally saw a huge group of riders (maybe 50-60) who rode like a weekend group - took the whole lane, some of them were chatting and using their arms for articulation only.


Thanks for the clarification. The guys were crazy fast. The winners from the previous year were around 30 minutes slower.

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Слава Україні 🇺🇦✊

In 2021 the starters field was relatively small, more or less 1500 units, and the guys in front did quite a fair race. This year was a total different story: even the head of the race on the bike was a tight pack; this allowed them to run on much fresher legs

I finished in 9h, close to the top of my age group and top 50 overall so you can certainly call me front pack; the race was not clean. Huge draft packs, esp second lap as we merged with 70.3 athletes. We all had a great day out but the times overall are meaningless. Finish positions also quite doubtful.

My Disclaimer upfront: I think the organizers did a great job in drying to get both races (IM and 70.3) underway on Sunday after the crazy Storms on Saturday but it came with a cost!


I raced the 70.3 and it really was a mess...I'm usually a good swimmer but I got a cramp out of the water and spent 8min in T1 before getting on my bike..... so I got into a first big pack after 10km into the bike course... now I tried 2 things: first I pushed harder than I was originally planning to get out of the pack but due to draft, everyone stayed behind me... than I decided that I really want a to have a "fair race" and started soft pedaling for a while until I got spit out of the pack and I could race fairly again... but only for 1-2 minutes because then I was swallowed by the next even bigger pack. I tried my soft pedaling approach again and each pack that swallowed me was even bigger (and slower). After 1h I gave up and stayed with the pack I was in to somehow complete the course and not get knocked off my bike as it got really crazy around me (overtaking from right side, crossing the centerline, squeezing into gaps that didn't exist, etc.). I was quite frustrated coming into T2 and I finished the run more as a training run as I lost my fun for the competition and I ended up approx. 20-30 places lower than in similar "fair" races over this distance.

I also did the math afterwards: 7000 Athletes on a course with a required distance of 12m needs a 84km course.... and ours was 90km, so this just doesn't work!

An thoughts? What would you have done? Any similar experiences? I'm starting in Kona in 3 weeks and I really hope to avoid similar situations...

Best regards,
Andreas

Ironman Italy is traditionally marred by excessive (to say the least) drafting. In 2021, with a relatively small starting field (1600 people for the full 140.6), things went a little better. This year's race became the ultimate draft fest. As I wrote in my first post here, the only way to have passably fair races, was to avoid overlap between them on the bike course, by reducing the bike leg of the full race (something like 120km). 120km might not be sufficient to call it Ironman, but neither a 180km group ride is

I was spectating and there from Friday afternoon. That they were able to pull this off after the Saturday storm was amazing.

What I learned: people will complain no matter what the solution is. Cancelled? Complain. Not cancelled? Complain. Yes, there were a lot of athletes on the course and drafting was there if you chose to. But I saw a lot of happy and satisfied finishers too 😄