That's interesting, some people clearly seem to believe "competitiveness" is represented by the average or median result for the qualification race and selectivity of the process.
I think competitiveness is how the WC race result is representative of my rank in the world. Is everyone who's at my level of better attending?
So maybe we are going to agree to disagree.
For me, the more people get to the WC the better, because I get better representation and better competitiveness.
I genuinely don't like that the WC is a victory lap for many. I like to go there and race and see how I stand. And I wonder if "victory lap" isn't - for some - an excuse for poor race strategy/performance/execution. Clearly, too many are starting out way too hard from what I saw.
I qualified as 9th (!) at a race in 2021 that had extra slots but was 10% of my AG in Kona 2022. 10% means it shouldn't be as hard as it is for me to qualify.
Legacy slots, Covid slots, people going for a victory lap only explain the difference up to so much. I tried estimating my result for a previous year and I'm confident it would have still been within top 20%.
How is a race competitive if people in the top 20% have a hard time qualifying? And I'm talking about men. I strongly believe the situation can only be worse for women from this point of view. Less slots means more of a roulette and more strong athletes are left out.
I think competitiveness is how the WC race result is representative of my rank in the world. Is everyone who's at my level of better attending?
So maybe we are going to agree to disagree.
For me, the more people get to the WC the better, because I get better representation and better competitiveness.
I genuinely don't like that the WC is a victory lap for many. I like to go there and race and see how I stand. And I wonder if "victory lap" isn't - for some - an excuse for poor race strategy/performance/execution. Clearly, too many are starting out way too hard from what I saw.
I qualified as 9th (!) at a race in 2021 that had extra slots but was 10% of my AG in Kona 2022. 10% means it shouldn't be as hard as it is for me to qualify.
Legacy slots, Covid slots, people going for a victory lap only explain the difference up to so much. I tried estimating my result for a previous year and I'm confident it would have still been within top 20%.
How is a race competitive if people in the top 20% have a hard time qualifying? And I'm talking about men. I strongly believe the situation can only be worse for women from this point of view. Less slots means more of a roulette and more strong athletes are left out.
Last edited by:
marcoviappiani: Dec 9, 22 2:52