Never ever happened to be on intercontinental flights. And I fly lot. On domestic ones, yes, and maybe in that case they should state in the t&c that athletes should always book non refundable flights

I have the solution:
1 day event in kona, 2500 athletes, $2000 registration fee. IM makes the same money as in 2022 and only have to handle one event, overall profit increase ;-)

In terms of numbers maybe, in terms of doing a shitty thing I disagree. Changing something that is promised and agreed and you have already made arrangements for vs changing some speculative easier Q-slot, I have to say I disagree (btw. were the slots allocations per race already announced even).

Anyway, interesting experiment. From my perspective losing the allure of Kona, splitting the fields and high cost of entry (if that is kept) I find really hard to believe that WC in other locations would be very attractive. Say, doing Nice as WC vs. just doing IM Nice, not sure if I would be willing to pay any thing extra for the WC. But maybe, IM should have better grasp of their clientele than I.

Obviously that is just from my perspective, I never in any race felt like I was competing against anybody in particular (just myself) so competing was never a reason to go to Kona, so it must've been the allure/mythos/whatever. I was thinking there would many (like 80% of the WC fields) like me, but I can of course be completely wrong.

The main issue in my view is that declaring today that you should have booked non refundable (if the option even exists) represents an ex post change of the terms and conditions we all accepted when we paid for the race, and opens up Ironman to legal liability for the financial hit to so many people. Not for me to involve lawyers (have got no time for that) but trust me, somebody will!

Yes, slot allocations at all the events had been previously announced.

I know that both my wife and I had made our decision on our racing calendar off of those slot allocations.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I respect your opinion, but I think you're being too charitable to IM.

There are two questions I would raise. First, why are you taking IM completely at its word? IM is making it sound like it did everything possible to stay in Kona, but the locals changed their mind and reneged on their (informal) agreement to have a two-day race in 2023. "Blame the powers that be in Kona"-- that's the message. As others have pointed out, we have no idea if that is true. For all we know, Kona authorities were more equivolcal about 2023; more "we'll see" than "yes". Did any local official ever state publicly that 2023 was a go? Did IM ever get any kind of agreement on paper?

Second, why didn't IM communicate the uncertainty to its customers who were already paying money and planning for Kona? IM talks about how it lives in Kona and is closely connected to the community, so it had to know that a two-day event in 2022 could be a straw breaking the camel's back. There is 0.0 chance that it was surprised that Kona said "no". Given that IM had no formal agreement and knew it was pushing the limits of what the community would accept, the prudent move would have been to communicate more honestly and openly with its customer base. All those who KQed before the announcement should have been told they were signing up for a WC in a TBD location.

The last thing I'll point out is that this kind of action is not new to IM. My own similar experience occurred with IMTX in 2021. All winter there were rumors and signs that Montgomery County was not going to grant a permit for the bike course given its COVID restrictions. It was pretty clear that an IM field exceeded permissible numbers for a gathering. That whole time we heard not a word from IM (other than the constant emails encouraging us to buy something). They just kept indicating "the race is on". Then, about six weeks before the race we get notice that the race is cancelled because the county wouldn't grant a permit. Same playbook-- "sorry guys, we did everything we could, but Houston screwed us".

Was it the end of the world? No. But it sure sucked to train and book travel for a race that was unlikely to occur. As is the case with the Kona move, the more customer friendly approach would have been to communicate the uncertainty and give people the option to go elsewhere much earlier. But that's not how IM operates. Why? Because for all intents and purposes IM is a monopoly. It does what it can, not what it should.

So, Messick learned that a handshake deal is worth the paper it's written on

No. He learned that a paper deal (contract) is more valuable than a simple handshake.

Here's Tri247's hard hitting Q&A:
https://www.tri247.com/...kona-plan-fell-apart
Messick
“expectation [a pretty high bar before we made the announcement and before we started qualifying athletes to a two-day Kona ] in July: two days of racing in 2023

“We thought we had a plan . . . we did have a lot of belief. So clear position going into Kona in October

“during Kona week . . the Mayor was fairly candid with the real-time feedback that he was getting
. . . a lot of pressure right now.

"the amount of feedback we were getting from the community was a lot more than we had expected.

"for any race community anywhere in the world, there is a balance between the economic benefits and the social benefits of a race and the inconvenience that the constituents and the members of that community feel

[By late October] "It was clear that two days simply wasn’t an option in Kona in 2023."
Find out how the next six weeks panned out and what options were weighed up before this week’s announcement in part two of the interview

Sounds to me like you were too busy interviewing a best friend (or wanting to be best friends) to ask the hard questions that your readers were expecting.

Don't accept this as anything other than a smart business decision. They know the men's field will sell out no matter where it is. They want the women in Kona this year to drive the increase in entries they sell in qualifier races, where they'll have 500 slots or something.

I’d like to know what questions you wanted asked.

The 30 mins consisted of:
2 mins of off the record catching up on family stuff (first time we’ve talked in 18+ months)
25 mins which produced the front page interview (transcribed while on the call)
3 mins of confidential talk.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Messick puts the entire weight of the decision that the 2-day format does not work in, and for, Kona on the local government. What work/research does WTC do to determine capacity? What responsibility does WTC have, as the leading triathlon steward, to do some research and come up with racing plans that are sustainable for the communities they are guests in?

I wonder what other governmental figures that host IM brand races are thinking about their relationship with WTC after reading Messick's responses in this situation. I imagine that their thinking, "if things don't go right here, we're going to get the blame."

I recognize that conducting interviews is difficult and I don’t think ST asked softball questions. I would like to see IM confronted with some of the criticisms that are commonly expressed.

I posted a sample question earlier in this thread, but in general I am curious as to how he’d answer a question like, “How would you respond to your critics that say X?”.

Maybe he’d give a standard answer along the lines “we did the best we could”, but maybe he’d say something like “We recognize that some athletes are not 100% satisfied with X and we acknowledge we can do better. We’re doing Y to try to improve in this area”.

I know that I’d feel better about IM if there was at least an acknowledgment that it has some agency and/or could have handled the Kona announcement better. The sense I have had is that IM is almost playing the victim: “all we wanted was to let the women shine and we thought we could do that but then Kona yanked the rug out from under us and we had no choice”.

The one question that I had on my list, that didn't get asked simply due to time, was "what would you say to the athletes who had already qualified expecting to go to Kona?"

But I'd also thought that he'd kind of expressed that sentiment around how they'd need to break the promise of everyone in Kona, and that they'd really had a hard time deciding which of the two promises (Kona vs two days) they were going to split off of.

Appreciate your feedback, though.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Messick should have just told Kona to suck it up and accept a two day event or he would yank the race and walk to where they will do it.

The reason why St. George was not desirable was Kona was on deck later. With Kona on deck every two years the other year elsewhere event becomes less desirable. If you moved it all to Nice or St. George or Frankfurt or wherever the value of the location would grow and everyone will forget Kona in a few years

The sport is bigger than Kona

I think the town would have told him to go pound sand.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

Yeah, a zero sum approach would have likely resulted in Kona fully rejecting IM, which based on the 70% or so that think Kona is the heart and soul of IM, would have been a disastrous outcome.

I think the result, despite the slight pain felt by those who pre-paid non refundable stuff (why on earth anyone would do that after the last 3 years is beyond me), is the best outcome for the sport considering. Kona still sits right in the center and it also allows a better race location to bring higher quality racing for many every other year.

I am very excited by this change, as I raced Kona 3x and found it to be my absolute least favourite race (even compared to IMTX 2018).

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"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Elliot | Cycle2Tri.com
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It's funny I know folks who feel exactly like you do and I'm the opposite. I've done it 3 times and I only do an IM to get a spot to race in Kona. Also all my friends say the same about IMTX as you and yet I still signed up for it, LOL.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

1000% agreed on this dev. There is more to this sport than kona. Everyone always talks about history. But the younger generation cares less and less about history as the years tick on. And they are the future. The sport does not need Kona.

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Zero chance that would have happened. Some locals may hate it but the businesses that profit speak loudest and they’d have the towns ear.

Agreed Dev that the sport is bigger than Kona, but not necessarily IRONMAN the company. If they walk away completely from Kona I think a) they lose some prestige and b) another company could go in and run an IronDistance race there and steal customers from IRONMAN the company.

Yes some people at first will still want to race their races because at the moment they are seen as holders of the World Champion Title, but that mantle could easily change to a) PTO or b) Challenge or c) whoever is running a full distance triathlon in Hawaii (Kona).

Tri247's John Levison had a go (Tri247):
"Asked how much of that is a business decision, Messick turned the question around a little" - good euphemism.
https://www.tri247.com/...n-kona-why-the-split
Asked about 'whether Nice' he said "I can’t really talk about this, but look, this all had to come together pretty quickly. Our focus was on communities with whom we had relationships and confidence and trust."
So reasonable to infer that the men's WC 2023 will be at an established IM race venue (signs point to Nice, but whatever). What are the other options in late September in Europe? Has to be 2 weeks before 14 Oct (2 week gap for logistic if no other reasons) and 2 weeks after is too late (weather/temperature risk).

I’m not sure they would. I recall reading a newspaper article when I did IMTX saying that event was one of the larger money makers for that community each year. That amazed me to see the economic impact ironman had on a community. But, Houston (and surrounding communities) are not a known tourist destination, whereas Hawaii is, so they effect may be quite different. Still, IM coming to Kona every October has to be a massive economic gain for the Kona area (for many)

Ryan: quick follow up. I know most of the focus is on the move of the race from Kona and whether or not that’s a good thing. This is understandable, given how central and special Kona is to our sport. At a personal level, it really doesn’t bother me. I understand why they had to do it and why it’s probably net/net better for IM and maybe the sport. Change always creates tensions with those that cherish tradition. For me I’m all for it, but I’d probably get upset if 2023 was going to be my first Kona and given I was lucky enough to have had the privilege of racing there before, my pov on this topic maybe isn’t as relevant as many posting here.

That said, my issue is with what IM is saying in a number of areas related to this and how some really hardcore triathletes and the local Kona community are hearing it. For example, in your interview IM talks about how much the Kona team worked with the community to help them prepare for the new 2-day format yet you have the senior police folks complaining about the last minute notice and how that created significant challenges for the community. Further I know folks that are senior in the volunteer community and the 2-day format was “news” to them, especially the part about it being for both 22 and 23 (a typical comment I heard was it may not work, why announce your doing it for 2 years?).

For me, it might have been better for IM to say that it did not do a good enough job of prepping the local community and that they own at least part of the negative reaction from the community….

I think this (and similar disconnects) may be impacting their credibility and that’s the issue I’m more concerned about. I could be over reacting and it frankly it may not have made any difference with respect to this issue.

I always believed that IM was different and that it operated at a higher plane from a relationship with the community perspective….I worry that I may have been guilty of seeing everything through those rose colored glasses and if lots of folks have similar reactions it might be bad for the company. This is my core concern.

Does that make any sense or am I once again missing something?

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.