These two plans seem a bit dangerous to me. As a female athlete that has started 15 minutes behind AG men for the past three years in Kona, I quickly run into a lot of athletes/swim traffic before the turnaround, and I'm not even a good swimmer (1:08-1:10). Having a large pack of fast and competitive men swim through the preceding waves could create issues.
I've also competed at 70.3 Worlds in recent years, starting as the last very female wave, and as a strong cyclist, I find it dangerous to be passing so many slower athletes throughout the entirety of a bike course, which would be the case for the M40-55 or M18-39 athletes in the examples below.
I also heard of an accident yesterday at IM 70.3 Texas where an athlete (Sika Henry) was in a bike collision on a very crowded course after a late wave start.
As much as I don't like the rolling start for the lack of direct competition, it may be the best solution for a safe event... you could even seed athletes by their qualifying event so that self-seeding is not whimsical.
desert dude wrote:
I think a better wave start would be
MPRO
WPRO
1-2min later: everyone 55+
10min later M18-39
8 min later: the rest of the women
12min later M40-54
or
MPRO
WPRO
1-2min later everyone 55+
12min M40-54
6-8min rest of the women
12min M18-39
This gets the most vulnerable participants to the elements onto & hopefully off the bike course sooner while putting the fittest people (in theory) later. It also keeps the oldest participants from battling a headwind on the bike in both directions and helps insure that the oldest are not running into aid stations out of water late in the bike & run as often happens according to my age 60+ perennial KQers.