I'm neither surprised nor offended. Slot allocations to races have ALWAYS been manipulated to grow markets, attract people to poor selling races, etc. It's a private business and they can run it however they think is best for both short term and long term considerations. I'm sure others will be outraged and they are welcome to vote with their wallets and head to Challenge, Toughman, Rev3 and other indies.

You know that years ago, you could qualify for the Ironman World Championships at an Olympic Distance Race.

And up until last year, there were many who made it to Kona, by having their names essentially drawn from a hat! :)

Actually, the more interesting and significant news recently was that a few weeks ago Wanda/Ironman bought Spectrum Worldwide - the race/event production company for many of the larger running races/events in Asia, including the Singapore Marathon!

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Even more interesting is Dalian Wanda's discussion with UEFA about potentially launching a tournament/league to rival the Champion's League....all the WTC and marathon stuff is small potatoes:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/...pions-league-1569637

Tell me again how they can't fit 15 more pro women on the pier?

Not sure what the big deal is...Auckland 70.3 had kona slots the first year it ran.

Writing has been on the wall for a while and that applies to pros to. There is a heavy emphasis on Asis expansion, this is just the beginning.

---

---

Save: $50 on Speed Hound Recovery Boots | $20 on Air Relax| $100 on Normatec| 15% on Most Absorbable Magnesium

Blogs: Best CHEAP Zwift / Bike Trainer Desk | Theragun G3 vs $140 Bivi Percussive Massager | Normatec Pulse 2.0 vs Normatec Pulse | Speed Hound vs Normatec | Air Relax vs Normatec | Q1 2018 Blood Test Results | | Why HED JET+ Is The BEST value wheelset

China continues to murder their own people and sits last in any form of human rights. It doesn't surprise since IM is owned by a Chinese entity and would continue to produce this type of media. And yet another reason why I do not race IM races.

Indeed, Dev - for just about all things sports related, be it participatory endurance sports such as running, cycling and triathlon or Pro level team sports, such as Soccer, it's "Look East", because the REAL big growth over the next 10 years is going to come from China, elsewhere in SE Asia as well as India.

Agreed - In the grand scheme of things Ironman and triathlon is small beer for Wanda. I am sure this will not sit well with the Ironman purists, but Wanda Senior Exec, Jack Gao hinted at this when Dan Empfield interviewed him at Ironman Hawaii last fall - that they intent to make Ironman a brand not only associated with 2.5/112/26.2, but all of endurance sports in China/Asia!

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I guess someone has to take a stand. Good for you. I'll keep giving them money at least until I blow out a hip, which probably won't be long at this rate.

I didn't read that they were adding 100 more slots to the pier. I suspect that they are reallocating slots to accommodate these races, adding to the angst of the 3rd place person to make the KQ.

I get your point though. IMO- the boy pros are over represented and should have their numbers cut, as opposed to the womens field expanding.

---

---

---

Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

All that is going on is moving 100 KQ slots that belong to age groupers from some races (like 2016 Muskoka that was supposed to have 2017 KQ slots) to Age grouper KQ slots in China. This has nothing to do with pro women. That's a totally different topic. By the way I support 50 pro women (or at least equal pro men and women....I really don't care about the number, it could be 75/75 as long as it is equal).

After spending three weeks in China on a work trip I just don't see personal sport being nothing but a niche market for a long time. Expercise and sport in general just didn't seem to be important to anyone I saw or talked to. I would think the culture would be against taking time away from family/wealth/work to do a time intensive sport like triathlon.

Would love to hear some views of China nationals on this.

On the other hand, who is to say that 1.4 billion people don't deserve the chance to qualify for WTC's headline event in their own country.

It may not work as quickly as they hope, but I'm glad that WTC are trying to grow their sport in the world's largest market. Much better than being owned by a private equity firm hoping to suck profits from it and then flip it.

---

'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

I for one welcome this...is it not enough that 50% of the field is US athletes?

This is a good way to boost the emerging markets, especially if that means that we do not have to go to far far away land just to get a shot and then if we just get lucky on the day pay for another round trip.

Doing Bintan Indonesia in Aug. as it was the nearest to me at the time.

---

http://RoadID.com/...te/4HC4V-TAFQ9XPJDTX

I'm not Chinese - but think about:

1. Triathlon has always been a very niche sport in US and the western world.
2. Even if it's only a niche in China...that could be a very big niche.

When I would go for work in Beijing, I would go and run on a local track close to my hotel. Even at 6 am, it would be packed and I would be weaving around runners when I cranked up the pace for intervals. Same deal at the local pool. I lot of local swimmers doing laps. You don't need a big percent of the population doing this to have a lot of people doing it. Marathons and other runs are huge. All you need is clubs running tri clinics on their spin bike and then those clubs running group rides outside the city on weekends or vacation camps and you're set.

I'm Chinese Canadian. You are right that endurance sports are still a foreign thing for the majority of the population. People are generally too busy with work, school and other social activities such as dining, drinking and playing majiang. However, distance running such as marathons (Bejing, Shanghai, Xiamen, etc.) and ultra marathon (The North Face 100KM Beijing) have become very popular in the past decade among the emerging middle class who now realized it's time to pay attention to their own health being. Some of the popular marathon races sold out literally in hours if not in minutes. And the all major big cities have their own races nowadays.

Triathlon have become the new trending endurance sport in China. Most people in this old "Bicycle Kingdom" have discarded their old commute bikes for cars. However, more and more of them are now buying fancy road bikes, tri bikes for exercising and racing. In mainland China, most triathlon races are short distance like Olympic distance except the Weihai ITU Long Course which has been double distance and triple distance in the past few years.

In the past two years, every WTC's Ironman 70.3 and Ironman 140.6 in the Asian-Pacific countries (Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia) has had a dozen or so up to 100 triathletes from mainland China attending. I believe the Wanda-WTC deal is aimed to bring Ironman back to mainland (it was there from 2008 to 2010) to grow this market.

If anyone has anything related to racing/running/biking in China or just in general, I'd be glad to throw in my two cents.

China now has lots of triatlon clubs. Shanghai alone has three!

Tri club from my hometown - http://www.ironman-china.com/html/page-7123.html#cnt
(scroll down a bit you'll see me at the Ironman Muskoka's finish line)

My kids did martial arts for ~10 years and I got to know some of the 'Masters' who have 5th Degree belts and up... some of them had gone to China for additional training or just to experience it. They spoke of entire fields and campsites filled with advanced practitioners of Wushu / Gong Fu and the various schools and sub-sects. Many thousands at a single event... scale that up by the size of China and you come up with a dedicated population of millions of athletes... most of whom could kick any of our asses :-)

I love my S/B/R workouts, but I would argue that martial arts are a far more fulfilling culture that encourages growth in many more dimensions than what my martial arts friends describe as boring and selfish endurance training.

Taking it back to your original point, the Chinese would not find it unusual to spend 10-20 hours at a wushu school, which enriches you physically, mentally, spiritually and socially. Spending that time training on your own would seem odd and empty. How appealing do you think riding a trainer in a basement would be to that population?

---

" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

To get more slots, they'd have ot do men and women on different days. But you'd need more volunteers I think. You also might push that part of the island to capacity.

---

TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

That's really interesting! I'm Chinese, but I never took up wushu/martial arts. And I don't know any of my friends or family members doing that either. Growing up in China, I think I only know one classmate in university who practiced wushu when he's little. That said, it could also have changed since I've left China for more than 16 years. But I can say there are more runners than Gong Fu Pandas in China. ;-)