I agree to some extent. But if near-misses increase, I would expect injuries to increase too. And if near misses rise, but injuries don't, is there an issue?

Survey is a good way to record the observations I mentioned.

relax. it's a military term for left over stuff.

also relax, because my personal opinion is that it should all be one wave. I was just pointing out the illogical arguments Monty was putting forth.

but you're doing the same thing Monty is, creating two separate arguments and then conflating them. Sure, you're faster than people who qualified, but nobody's arguing that. Sure, you're not in anybody's way. Sure, maybe the right thing to do is to just have one wave. However, the plain fact is that this is WTC's race and they can do what they wish with it. They decided to have a Legacy wave. It was not "after" anything. You don't have standing. You were promised nothing.

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I didn't argue either of these points. They can do what they wish and I have no standing, nor do the AG qualifiers. I'm just voicing my opinion, which is what 90% of posts are on a forum, and stating why I feel that way. My separate arguments support the same point, which is that I would prefer to race with my AG because it would improve my experience and not detract from anyone else's. It's entirely possible that if all legacy athletes started in AG, we would be in the way of others or detract from the race in another way if as a group we are BOP on average, in which case this is the logical start setup. But if most of us won't get in the way, then there's no benefit to shoving us aside.

Exactly!!! The discussion here and in other places are all over the map... this is to create a hopefully less dense bike course. I think it may just do that.

Fairer- subjectively this is extremely simple, if you have ever done, or been at Kona out on the back course, the draft packs are HUGE and obvious. Based on the study data, these will be substantially reduced. This will be very easy to see by all, and particularly by on course officials. Objectively, spacing of people crossing the various timing mats could be used

Safer- objectively- rate of accidents reported

So a mass start is what makes a IM hard? I guess the other 9-16 hours of racing are the easy part...……….

Nah, it's not the mass start itself, per se.

There's an EASY FIX for how to make mass starts much less 'dangerous' - smaller field sizes.
Also reduces drafting!!! Win-Win.


You know - like all these races had, back in the day, before M.Dot tried to squeeze every last body with a vaild CC into the water at the same time.

Since M.Dot's sole motivation is to get max # of paying bodies onto any given course; the only way to do that, and maintain some pretense of "athlete safety", is to go to wave or TT starts.
Hence, here we are.

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float , hammer , and jog

Coach Cox is chiming in with stats over the years. He makes a great point against the 2-day argument that currently 70% of the field are men and wave starts within that would be required to achieve less drafting. Of course, knowing if it does go two days that means even more participants...

https://www.coachcox.co.uk/...-world-championship/

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
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Are the Kona draft packs as bad as the one in Texas? I couldn't believe how bad those were, but I've never been to Kona.

Last year, Kona rivaled Texas for the biggest pelotons.

Jack

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Wow. That must be annoying as hell to people who respect the rules and then get beat by drafters. Hopefully these changes successfully reduce that crap.

Having raced twice in the mass wave and racing again this year in the new format, I am in general, in favour of wave starts. However, some simple things could be done to make the wave starts better.

First, as a 57min swimmer but a 5 hour biker, it was so difficult to not draft. My NP was 40 watts lower for the first 70km than I anticipated, and mostly because of sitting up to let a pack pass, then ride for 5 seconds, and another group, etc. The simple fact is that it was either draft or lose massive time on the bike. That is unequivocally unfair and something needed to be done. As M45, I do not relish the prospect of swimming through a large proportion of the M40 group ahead of me, but it is what it is.

I understand, but do not support, the calls for lower numbers. Like it or not, this is a for profit business. So if you don't like it, then you know what to do. If you enjoy M dot races, then it is in our interest for large fields **and** high quality races. That is where small changes can be made.

Aside from the water polo style fist fights of the first 20 minutes of the mass start swim, the best aspect of that is you are racing whoever is next to you. I get that.

In wave starts, you don't know. Sure, there are bib numbers, arm tattoos and even letter age group tattoos to make identification possible in theory. In reality, you have arm sleeves, bad body marking jobs, and small letters for the age group category that are hard to see and are generally placed everywhere on different athletes so you can never really tell who is in what age group. Given that at Kona, they do the body marking on sight by volunteers the morning of, hopefully this will be improved. But the easy way around keeping your AG category discreet if you are so inclined is simply to apply sunscreen in the morning before body marking and the tattoo will be gone before you exit the water.

So at the end of the day, there remains a significant difference between the Pro races and the AG races. The Pro race is a tactical battle, whereas the AG race is a time trial. Go as hard as you can until the line and then see where you rank. In many ways, the latter is much closer to the original ethos of Ironman.

Ironman New Zealand is still a mass swim start.

But this is about resolving the bike drafting issue, not swim safety.

Sorry, I just contributed to ruining the Kona Swim Start poll. The "you will criticize whatever they do" option made me laugh so I picked it.

For AG racers or spectators that were out there yesterday, how did the wave starts go?
How was the waiting around in the morning for the later waves to start? Was drafting any less of an issue on the bike? Were aid stations still stocked for the later starting waves? How did the legacy wave go?

The waiting worked fine. As a member of M45-49, we were behind the younger guys. The corrals were spacious and everyone was pleasant.

The start itself was much calmer and more controlled than the old mass start. I had no trouble getting away clean.

Inevitably, the problem was that I had to slalom between the inferior swimmers in earlier waves. We all know how that works. It creates an arbitrary factor in how your swim goes. I expect it hurts good swimmers more than bad, because there is more overlap that way.

I will concede the draft packs in the bike seemed less severe. In that sense, it probably worked.

I do prefer the iconic mass start, however.

My first time in Kona. Two thoughts:

1. I’m a slower 30-34 AG swimmer. I would’ve preferred the mass start so I could’ve started near the back with the slower swimmers. For the faster swimmers like the post above it makes the experience worse for them because they are constantly swimming over people like me. A lose-lose situation. My only take is that I need to swim faster or I need to race Kukai division.

2. Yes there was blatant drafting; but I didn’t think the drafting was too bad. To be honest, I was more disappointed in seeing many penalty tents empty.

It was my first time racing so I can’t compare to previous years. But my swim and bike experiences were great.

M35-39 & swam 59:20 iirc

On the swim it only took 50m to get clean water (started to the left and stayed left away from the throng the whole time). About halfway home after the turn I noticed some faster swimmers coming around on my left side. Presumably faster swimmers from later waves. That is probably the way to attack the swim if you’re fast but in later wave. Just stay out to the left and swim around the groups instead of through.

Onto the bike and there was plenty of room to ride legal right from the start. Of course that didn’t stop some turds from blatantly drafting. Though there were people in every penalty tent I passed, and I witnessed a guy get a blocking penalty. Overall I got to ride my own ride and it was enjoyable.

Heh - wear bugspray. Mosquitoes feasted on me waiting in the swim corral line.

I'll second that the waves generally achieved the drafting objective, at least when compared to 2016 when I raced. I thought the swim was more violent actually, but could have just been my choice at where I lined up. I equated it to more guys that were all likely heavy hitters being lumped together versus an intermixing of talent. Not idea.

Compare to 2016 I rarely saw groups of guys bunches together drafting like I did then. Saw refs handing out cards, the first penalty box was absolutely packed. After that I had passed a lot of people so fewer to penalize, but still saw some in the boxes. Refs were visible pretty much all day.

I only just noticed this thread as I just started another one but I'll third that I think the wave starts were a good thing. Here is my post in the other thread.

I thought I would open the discussion and although I liked the mass start of Kona in previous years a few times I had been caught up in the pack by Waikoloa that there was no way to get around and you were stuck in it until the climb to Hawi where it broke up. This year as a MOP swimmer in the 40-49 wave there was a constant line of cyclists pretty much all the way to Hawi but plenty of space and and no reason you couldn't slot in the line and keep your draft distance. The draft busters were in force where as before I think they were daunted to tackle the bunch as it was just too hard. As it turned a stronger headwind after Waikoloa people were drafting more so and the two guys in front of me both got shown a card and sent to the tent.

I don't know if anyone who raced would think any different but IMO it had to be done and made for a far better bike. Kudos to Ironman for the change.