If this is a cash grab, i.e., two days of racing instead of one to make more money, then let it be remembered that the one-day race in Kona 2019 attracted 1513 men and 613 women.

Of course there are fewer men in Nice than there were in Kona when men had their day, but moving the men to Nice doesn’t turn a “not a cash grab” into a “cash grab”. (Also, Ironman had no say on the matter).

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Ya, 2019, the numbers are up for sure if that's the baseline. It's interesting to see how big a drop in male participants there are in Nice vs Kona though. I would have thought the euro males would have offset it.

The number of finishers last October was driven by huge numbers qualified for the cancelled IMWC Kona 2020 and a proportion of those qualified for the postponed IMWC Kona 2021 who could choose to defer to Kona (Oct 2022) (rather than racing at St George in May 2022).
2200 on Sunday is close to capacity (?2500?) and may be the more manageable norm.
I can see a chunk of athletes in the coming 11 months who see what a cracking venue for an IMWC Nice is, choosing to wait till the IMWC is back in Nice in 2025 rather than trekking to the other side of the world (Hawaii time zone is 12 hours behind continental Europe (CEST)) for a hot and humid fest without a city, with rather few spectators and exorbitant accommodation costs.

I like that it’s in Nice this year and hopefully IM will start rotating it to various locations around the world but always go back to Kona every couple years. I think having a regular Ironman in Nice every year hurts the numbers some because it’s basically the same course. The only way to do a full on the Kona course is to qualify for the WC. If they do rotate it hopefully they will chose locations that don’t normally host an IM.

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Let food be thy medicine...

I think it is possible that in 5-7 years more people focus on nice then kona.

why,
crowds on the course and city, will make a better atmosphere and race environment.

Flight plans for Europe and north America. You can hit nice then go somewhere else pretty easy from NA and in Europe a lot of people can drive.

The hype and race make the build up not the location. each year the race will build and kona may become a lesser option for most.

I want both personally. kona is my goal, nice will keeps my wife happy attending.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

of course, against all odds and common sense and natural law perhaps... it's not a cash grab but the smart path to take for the long term sustainability of the brand and the event.

i've been a pest about this both publicly and privately (to andrew and his crew). rotate the damned race. it legimitizes the WC status; it's more fair for people who live on the other side of the world; and it hedges the brand against a change of political mood or a catastrophe in hawaii. of course catastrophes never happen in hawaii so strike that last point.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

When the split race was announced I was a tad sad and thought I’d never want to try and qualify for a race other than Kona. A few months away and I’d almost be more excited to qualify for a non Kona race. Due to none of these factors but they all make sense and are more appealing too. In 5-7 years Kona will still have some sort of legend status with people wanting to do it but I think the rolldowns won’t be quite as far as we’re seeing now.

From purely a fan perspective, I'm way more excited to see this race in Nice unfold on this awesome course, than having the same old same old Hawaii race.

From an age-grouper participant point of view, I think the mystique of Hawaii will still last for a while, but will level off when Nice builds its own reputation and legends (not it doesn't already have it for the older triathletes like me who followed the battles between Mark Allen, Ives Cordier, Simon Lessing, Luc VanLierde, etc, in Nice in the 80's and 90's).

As a fan I am far more excited for the race in Nice than in Kona.

I am pretty sure my full IM days are done (last full IM in 2015), but as an athlete, in 2010, I qualified for Kona at the full IM in Nice. By far, IM Nice was my favourite venue (maybe Tremblant a close second, Kona third, South Africa 4th, Placid 5th). If I was racing full IM's I would be totally jacked up about racing in Nice compared to Kona. I've done the 70.3 WC 7x and find the rotation aspect to be fantastic. The people make the actual race, not as much the venue.

PS. I am a French speaker, so France is easy for me and getting to Nice from Eastern Canada is waaay faster than getting to Kona. Kind of hoping we see a 70.3 WC in Nice after Taupo, but that would likely be much for one venue.

I thought people on this board wanted Kona to be smaller? 2200 would make this race more fair and its on more fair terrain.

But the bigger question from a broadcast perspective, are even going to see much of the bike?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

France doesn't have much experience with broadcasting bike racing, so tough to know.

In the spirit of being excellent to one another, let me not laugh you out of the room and instead politely note that:
1) le Tour de France may be able to afford a few more helicopters, and a few more dozen cars and cameras and people than Ironman,
2) broadcasting a 180 km individual time trial with 50 PRO athletes riding in 10-20 different places may be a little harder than broadcasting a group race where you need to be in 2-3 places tops,
3) the presence of a couple thousand age groupers behind the PRO race may complicate things a bit in terms of people and vehicles moving about.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

i think sunday will be a cracker of a race
i understand that some people are sentimental , but my guess is people will change their mind after the race .
in a way the 2019 70.3 worlds where so much more interesting than any 70,3 worlds . kona is really only great with the real wind and we havent had that for quite a few years.

side note:
i'm not super plugged-in to the IM world at the moment, but from what i have been following, i've so far not heard a single person grumbling who's actually on the ground in nice. last year, in the lead up to kona, there was a huge amount of complaining about getting ripped off on accommodations, copping hassle from locals, feeling claustrophobic or whatever. it was all a bit sad and contributed to this overall feeling that kona had kinda jumped the shark.
maybe a lot of people are secretly hating Nice so far, but if so, i sure haven't heard about it.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

There is a lot of hype going into this race and this is an opportunity for Ironman to create history and another historical venue. The one thing they should do is to stop the IM Nice event in June

By Monday, there will be many talking points about the epic battles on the bike and run and people will be intrigue and want to do the race. The key is to make it like Kona, qualification only and not have a separate race in June and also limit the number of qualifiers to maybe 1400 ish (this won't happen but.....)

For us Europeans it's nice to be have this race closer to home.
It's in the same time zone (instead of +12) and it can be reached by car or train without spending 30+h between flights and a double layover.
It's also infinitely cheaper for every single item (travel, accomodation, local travel) and once in Nice you can walk, use public transportation and have plenty of options of entertainment, leisure, and cultural stuff.

I originally planned to race the WC but eventually decided otherwise. I qualified in June at IM Nice but didn't take my slot. Mostly I've realised the course doesn't suit my current skill level so I'd rather spend the money on another race while I try to improve my descending.

Instead, I'll be going by train just for the weekend to watch the race and support the athletes and take in the atmosphere. I never could have done that in Kona.

I don't mind seeing the race rotate each year.
It does give a winning chance to different kinds of athletes.
My only gripe with IM is the price of the race. How can they justify asking for almost triple the price of IM France in June?

I'm on the ground here in Nice and its fantastic so far. Epic swimming, epic bike route (crushes Kona in this regard) and a run course that has the potential to be a cauldron lined with fans. I've raced Kona in 2012 and 2019 and loved it, but this feels more special to me....... perhaps I'm biased as I've holidayed many times in Nice before so I already loved it, and there is the First time new course excitement factor as well but on the whole I think this is a fantastic move for Ironman. The only negative which is fairly obvious is that the women and men are separate.

I am European and always saw Kona as a more exotic, legendary special place than Nice. I am now in Nice to race Sunday (qualified for Kona for 24) and have to say, I am starting to doubt it. The sea is beautiful, the bike course will be epic, the crowds on the run will be incredible (I did 70.3 worlds here in 2019), I flew from London (just 1h40min) and I am not jet lagged, it did not cost me a fortune, it is quite hot but not stupidly so to the point that the level playing field will be fair as opposed to favoring the athelte with the best extreme heat/humidity resistance. It will also be hard to draft on the bike so likely fair race. MOST importantly, the city is equipped to host big events, everybody is welcoming, transportation is top notch (10 euro tram from airport every 8 minutes), hilariously across the same square from Ironman village there is another event village for the Rugby World Cup. There is space for all and no NIMBYism here.

I think the real issue I see is I still don't understand why they segregated men and women. It is so strange walking around the expo that there is just so many males. I don't like that. We should have men + women WC on the same weekend. If Kona can't host it, we either go back to single day with smaller fields, or we just drop Kona - Nice is just as good as Kona and easier to get to than Hawaii even for US East Coast. As for the picture with the lava fields in teh background, I'll take it next year in Lanzarote. Still looking forward to Kona 24, but I suppose I have actually now given up complaining and really look forward to the weekend ahead.

Best of luck this weekend !!!

And to your point, just move the entire thing, men and women to Nice in 2025. Just leave Kona hanging. They don't really want the race and don't deserve it at this point. People will get to love Nice guranteed. It is faster to get to for all of Europe, Middle East, Eastern North America, most of South America. Kona is just faster to get to if you are in Western North America and far east/NZ/Aus. But most of the world can get to Nice more quickly.

I also hope to see genders combined in the future. Probably not worth doing a 2 day event ever again but if the field size is capped at 2,500 (for example) it makes it more compelling and competitive to get in no matter the location.

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USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

Nonsense.

Europeans know how to broadcast endurance sports better than anyone.

Didn't Nice do 2 day for 70.3 Worlds 2019 with both genders, or did that only start with St. George 2021? I can see Nice being able to handle 2000+3000 over two days. Doing two full IM's in two consecutive days is just an endurance nightmare for organizers and volunteers. 2x70.3 is easier to pull off given that you have an extra 8 hrs of breathing space between end of race one at 3 pm and start of race two logistics at 5:00am. With 2x IM, you're barely done work on day one at 1am and have to get rolling with day two at 5am (actually more like 4 am)

I'm not on the ground in Nice but...Kona week has been my sports Christmas since they started broadcasting it live online. I raced Kona 3 times and covered it for more than a decade. This year will be different. I just watched 20+ hours of live coverage from UTMB last weekend. Courtney Dauwalter was my main interest, but just watching the elites running the trails around Mont Blanc was very compelling and I'll likely watch most of the live coverage in coming years.

The UTMB coverage was fantastic and the crowds in Chamonix were very enthusiastic so I don't have any doubt that IMWC in Nice will be world class and I see the value of moving the WC to different parts of the world. I do, however, have doubts about separate races for men and women. After watching the men and women race together in Chamonix it will be a bit sad watching men and women in separate IMWC championships. I won't be watching Nice live because I'll be doing a tri Sunday morning. I probably won't watch Kona live either but instead spend a couple of hours on each race watching the replays of the live coverage, assuming they will be on Youtube. In previous years, I watched multiple hours of Breakfast with Bob interviews before and after Kona. I've watched none from Nice leading up to this weekend's race.

I realize that UTMB could include 10K participants of both sexes last week in races of multiple distances because they race primarily on trails in a mainly rural environment.

P.S. From Ohio it's about the same distance (as the crow flies) to Kona as it is to Nice.