Ironman Malaysia: Triathlon Forum: Slowtwitch Forums

Ironman malaysia had 35 hawaii spots available. There were 38 starters in the race and 27 finishers. Everyone who finished got offered a spot !!!

This from x-tri...

Kona Qualification Tainted by Malaysia Fiasco
2005 Ironman Malaysia

Age group athletes around the world who read this article and associated stories on xtri.com this week may well find themselves shaking their heads in disbelief. For those who train week-in week-out and spent thousands of dollars travelling around the world in the hope of snaring one of only 1500 or so valuable qualification slots for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships, this will indeed be a bitter pill to swallow. On Sunday 27th February in Langkawi Island, Ironman Malaysia came under starter�s orders with only 38 athletes competing for 35 qualification slots. With a high attrition rate typical of this very demanding event, only 27 official finishers were recorded which means that, for the first time ever, simply finishing an official qualification event within the time limit would have been enough for anyone to qualify for the Kona. Worse still, the 8 slots which remain unclaimed simply �disappear� � they cannot be awarded to anyone else by the event organiser.

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Finding out how this situation came about is not an easy task. Despite two email enquiries, WTC have thus far declined to reply to xtri.com and information on the event is virtually non-existent on the organisation�s otherwise well-informed web site, ironmanlive.com. Several age group athletes have already contacted xtri.com to record their displeasure. In each case, they had made enquiries to the WTC about the race, only to be told it was not taking place in 2005.

One disgruntled athlete commented, �I am a Malaysian and was very annoyed to find out on 25 February 2005 that IM Langkawi was, in fact, going ahead. I did write to IM live on 19 January 2005 to inquire on this race after the local press reported that it would proceed. IM live gave a blunt reply and said there is no race! There were 38 participants on Sunday and 35 slots available. This makes Langkawi a lottery race. I think the whole thing is a joke.�

Through other channels, xtri.com has been told that the situation arose from an insurance claim made by a competitor in the 2004 race against the WTC themselves. The competitor was allegedly knocked from their bike by a race official, although details on this incident are hard to come by. WTC reportedly felt strongly enough about this to unilaterally cancel the Malaysian�s contract, which still had several years to run. This led to the WTC�s September announcement that the event was off the qualification schedule.

The local organising committee in Malaysia, who it appears have been working very hard in recent years to establish their event under less than ideal conditions, refused to bow down to the Florida based corporation and filed suit in a US court to force WTC to reinstate the race. Legal proceedings were only finally resolved on 12th February this year, with the court finding in Ironman Malaysia�s favour.

Evidently upset with the verdict, it appears the WTC advised the local organising committee that failure to run the race on the agreed date with all stated provisions of the race contract would amount to a breach of their agreement. With only two weeks left before the scheduled race date, and only six weeks after the island was devastated by the Boxing Day Tsunami disaster, the organisers set to work attracting athletes to race, as well as taking care of the vast logistical issue of putting on such an event. For their part, it appears the WTC refused to offer any publicity for the event other that a small link on ironmanlive which, one assumes, was possibly required to honour their side of the event contract. They also failed to correct the September press release � widely published, including here on xtri.com � that stated the race would not take place.

One has to imagine the WTC have very good reasons for pursuing this course of action. However, whilst they fail to make any comment on the matter, their reasons will remain a mystery.

One thing does seem clear, however. Those athletes who took part and have contacted xtri.com feel that the local organising committee have worked a minor miracle to stage the race. It also appears likely they have lost a very large sum on money in doing so as the US$50,000 prize purse, pasta and awards functions and all associated race activities went ahead as normal despite a roll call of only around 15% of the expected number of competitors.

�I thought they did a pretty good of putting the race together,� men�s champion Courtney Ogden told xtri.com, �no complaints from me. No complaints, that is, except the heat and humidity � . it was the hardest race I have ever done. There were 32 aid station stops in total on the 4 lap marathon and I stopped at every one. ouch!�

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