Have you done Kona before? If you take the show away from Kona (the pro’s, industry folks, breakfast with bob, coffee swim up boat, underwear run, ST party, TGINRP, etc), the race is really no different than any other Ironman.

The appeal of Kona to most is the show. If you take away the show, the demand won’t be the same.

Nice is technical compared to Kona. Otherwise, it's not particularly technical. I'm far from being a solid bike handler as will desert dude and a few here can attest to, but Nice, aside from one descent with 2 hairpins if I recall would not rate as technical for the vast vast majority of riders in Europe. This might be a consequence of the course selection in NA (not sure where you live) though. Most courses are not technical at all and on big highways.

In theory yes it should be. You can only put what ~2500 total on race day there, but I don't believe the Women numbers are near that.

Not sure if this has been said but the Legacy Program is the easiest way to Maximize profits. You get one dummy (myself included) to pay a ridiculous entry fee at minimum 12 times....

They needed to 'target' me once and I delivered 12X.

Simple math tells me, that is maximizing profits.

Still easily one of my top races, if not my favorite. But how about that middle school transition and hike up a trail due to bridge collapsing shortly before the race!

what you write about is not surprising to me because its team, and because it's northern europe. if you go to an IM race just about anywhere in europe the most represented nationality is, of course, the country the race is held in. the second most was, until pretty recently and probably still is, the UK. a part if this is because the UK has been more gender egalitarian. the list of countries like this is pretty short. canada, the US, new zealand, australia. there's a reason why those countries field such strong womens olympic triathlon teams. this is less so in southern europe. you just don't see a third of the field in a triathlon on spain or italy made up of women, or at least you didn't the last time i looked at the stats. until pretty recently among italian or spanish nationals an IM in italy or spain might be 90 percent men. women until recently (and perhaps not even now) been highly represented in southern europe. this is why i think it will be fantastic to see 3000 women taking over the streets of nice (if that is where the race is held).

my stats might be outdated so my views might be outdated about women's participation rates in ironman in mediterranean countries. i hope they are. but if they're not then i suspect that's in part because endurance sport opportunities are less for women during their formative sports years. this is why i think the optics of an event like this in nice could really be big. and i don't mean the optics as in the idea, i mean the optics. the pictures. the visuals. i fully intend to be there to witness this.

A few "dummies" vs 3000 women? It looks to me that IM is trying to expand women and IM never does anything to lose money. My guess is if the number of women increases the legacy program could go away forever.

I am glad to know that you think you know me so well.

2019 I was told I was going to Kona in 2023. That is 4 years of waiting after racing IM for who knows how long. Man, life has to go on. I have given to much to this organization (actually worked for them for almost 5 years). They are scrambling for survival. The company is so f-ing toxic this announcement does not surprise me the least bit.

All the comment are accurate; IM f-ed themselves with the Island; got too greedy. And now they f-ed it for all of us athletes that have invested decades of our life to get to the one race that matter the most to us. Yes, I kept at it to get to KONA.

So no, I will not wait another year. My life, my families lives, we need to move on from this sport. I have been sucking from the IM tit for far too long and I am done.

And I will gladly jump on any class-action lawsuit or any case against IM; sign me up.

The birth of the sport thing was not in Hawaii. It was in fiesta island in 1974 in SD.
And that’s just for triathlon named as such. There were triathlons in France in the early 1920s called “course des trois sports”.
So Kona is not where triathlon was born. Including Ironman since it was first held on Oahu.

I thought you said you were not that 'old' :-)

I really hope this is not true
ALOT of People do this sport for KONA not to do IRONMAN world champs in NICE
Reduce the field size of KONA and keep its aura/ magic.
I don't get why they have to change history
The Tour de France in Australia would be very very different , Just like changing Challenge Roth to St George - its not the same. Im hoping this is a big time rumour. Does anyone know if this could be slightly untrue?

Dan, just to clarify something you wrote and maybe out of context. I´m from Spain, born in 1969. I can can asure you that women had SAME opportunities in their formative years (school, university...) to participate in sports than men had.

I think Penticton Canada has just as much history as Nice - and would be another good alternative
What do you think?