I’m curious how many brands/industry people are attending Kona this year. Will it be a reversion to 2019 levels when a one-day event made travel less expensive? Will the overall decline of the sport and industry have a cooling effect? Is Slowtwitch itself having the traditional gathering? Feels like there is a notable lack of buzz, on the heels of a women’s race with a very poor turnout.
Scott DeRue has a major challenge ahead. His predecessor did his best to show a profit, at the expense of destroying the brand, and the relationship with the community of Kona. There were around 1k women racing yesterday in Nice. That is similar to old 1 day racing numbers in Kona. 2k men. 3k in total. I am hearing rumblings of back to 1 day of racing in Kona, the way it should be. Racing for men and women on the same day, same course has differentiated the sport since the beginning. Hopefully this happens sooner rather than later. Most brands can’t afford to have representation in two places at two different times. Thus watering down the overall experience.
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Agreed about having men and women co located, but women and men having their own race on their own day (they don’t mix the 100m finals in track, they don’t mix the FIFA world cup finals, they don’t mix NBA and WNBA etc etc) …women sport getting their own spotlight is fine, and as you mentioned there are as many women racing Nice as the mixed gender Kona.
So just have the two at the same location two days apart. It does not need to be in Kona though. If Kona does not want us in a two day format, there are places which are easier for the majority of triathletes in the world to get to, that will host.
Before our time the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to LA, the Minneapolis Lakers moved to LA (there is no Lake in LA) and in our time, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver, Montreal Expos moved to Washington…lots of entities outgrow their host and then they find another spot to spread their wings. It all works out in the end.
I think Ironman’s problem is they have not allowed the wings to spread by keeping one foot down in Kona. That would be like Walter O’Malley playing half the season in Brooklyn and half in LA and expecting LA to become the real dodger home.
Either cut the chord with Kona and move on, or stay in Kona properly. The current approach is non commital to making a new venue take off.
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Let’s take this one apart one at a time.
1.) “the expense of destroying the brand and the relationship with the community of Kona.” To be clear, everyone was on board with the thoughts of two days in Kona. That includes IM, the County, the town, etc.
What clearly hadn’t been done well enough was enough large-scale communication with residents about impacts for the Thursday race. Because, well, THAT was the straw that was a relationship issue. But, mind you – the whole reason IM wound up in a split venue debacle in the first place was because there was already agreement in principal to have two days for years to come.
2.) “1k women racing” 1451 registrants, 1300 starters. Factor in the likely 2500 you have for men’s Kona and you’re about 1000 people too high for your math of 3000. And that doesn’t even count the 2400 men who were in Nice last year, or the more than 2300 women who were in Kona last year. We all knew that this would be the “down” year – the qualification cycle for Nice was not going to be good at pulling North American women to France simply due to the race calendar.
3.) I do not long for a return of age group men impacting the pro women’s race. I do not long for a return of age group women getting a shitty start time later than everyone else. And frankly if it goes down to one venue I’d rather ride that course in France than on an out and back highway. We have evolved a lot as our sport – from just being able to mail in an entry if you knew the right way to do it to qualifying at every type of race known to man to what our current system is. Sometimes traditions die because they should.
Long live two days.
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This was very much fixed in 2019 with the ag wave starts and larger time gap between the women pro’s and first ag wave. So this shouldn’t be a deterrent anymore for a 1 day race.
There’s other challenges with a 1 day race but I don’t think this is one of them if done correctly.
It’s difficult, because even if Kona welcomed back two days, it could likely be reversed again with subsequent public clamor. I can’t see how Ironman would risk that whole fiasco and the knockdown effects.
Even if Ironman got a multiyear contract, they’ll still have the issue of volunteers and public goodwill. There’s no reason why a public sit-in on the highway couldn’t happen and wreak havoc on the race.
As your post implies, ultimately, regardless of the deal IM makes, they need the community to buy-in. And is that really going to happen without IM making some huge spending PR projects for Hawaiian youth that gets all the local parents excited?
It seems like for all the issues the split venue has, diversification is a pretty solid path forward. While it’s a shame to have the men and women championships in different locations, it doesn’t seem too outlandish.
I wouldn’t be surprised if what Kona does agree to is a September male race and an October female race. I could see that 4-5 weeks apart with the race being on Saturday not being as impactful as the whole Thursday & Saturday of the same week being an issue.
why do the think the bolt part???
they just had like 6 other events this weekend, with over 2000 finishers in Washington 70.3 in it’s first year.
They used to charge 500 US and have 2200 athletes at worlds now they charge 1600 US and have 3500 each year? ( made more $$$ then NICE)
Where I live every race was packed, ( Victoria 1400 +, Oregon 2200+ CDL 1400+, Washington 2000 +, and they just added Boise back) short course too. Certain areas are likely falling off and you are your mates slow down but in general there are more triathlons and triathletes then ever around the world.
Think maybe you are just making up stuff here to suit an argument that mostly you are making. Seems like they had 1450 entires for Nice, and as I recall, maybe around 800(have to look that one up) ladies in Kona? So some numbers you made up to seem close, well really aren’t that close, are they? And rumblings on a one day Kona again, well that is just you and a few other individuals wishful thinking. No one serious is contemplating that, in fact the bosses seem to say that is not an option anymore. Rumblings I hear are that virtually everyone is happy with the two day separate mens and womens race, the talk is more about should they be in the same spot going forward.
Yep.I reckon both races in Nice would have made for an amazing race week for everyone.
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yeah, that’s what I am saying. Do both races in Nice so no one has an option of “waiting for Kona” and give it a real go.
Both triathletes wedded to Kona and the town of Kona can take the breather and decide if the sport can do fine elsewhere (and that was already decided like in 1988 when IMNZ, IMC, IMOZ, IMGermany all materialized and lots of people flocked to do the local Ironman). So we know there is pull for Ironmans around the world, and if you have no Kona option we will see there is pull for a championship at Nice (or elsewhere).
As mentioned above, Walter O’Malley took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn and put them down in LA and it worked out fine. Ironman is like that. Our Brooklyn can be left behind and we’ll get over it. But as long as we keep playing in Kona and Nice at the same time, people will be crying for the good old days.
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I do believe that athletes will come to a World Championship no matter where it is. It’s just the distribution of where those athletes come from will be different. Obviously, anything outside of North America will have less Americans. A European race will see more Europeans and Australian/New Zealand race will see more Aussies/Kiwis. If it does move away from Kona, many Americans will view this as bad. Part of me thinks a move away from Kona will be bad but I would love to see some data to make a more informed decision.
What I would like to know is the current distribution of Ironman athletes. Is it more USA based? What’s the percentage of Europeans and Aussies/NZ? How do races do in NA versus Europe? What markets have the most potential?
These are just some of the datasets I think you need to look at. There are others but I don’t know enough to ask for them right now.
Many of us Americans found triathlon and/or IM because of the Kona NBC broadcast. So there’s definitely some nostalgia involved when people are against moving Kona. Will a Nice, Frankfurt, Cairns, etc broadcast have the same appeal to the non triathlete? I don’t know but I know this is only one stream of what brings athletes in.
At the end of the day, IM is going to do what IM wants to do. And we all have to live with it.
nice had 435 americans
the mexiican team looked also big
at the end of the day the best location for a world champ would prob be north florida that is kind of the centre where most people live witthin a 7 or so hour flight radius and the waether would be stable in october.and a resonably sized airport nearby .
clearwater certainly was not the location lol . you need to have a selective bike course that you need for world champs and of course a community that tolerates the race
in nice you have enough space to have 2 transition zones and then you could do sat sunday race . something you cant do in kona .
apart from not being in that 7 hour raduis for west coast americans nice ticks a lot of boxes so it is probably the 2nd best location apart from south east coast location .
but again i dont think any community will tolerate road 2 road closures of which one is on a working on a working day for too long . so i guess it willl be rolling like 70.3
and is should prob be 1 year east coast usa 1 year south western europe and then every third year alternate between south america and south east asia and oceaniana and kona
I’m sorry but this thread demonstrates a major flaw of the Slowtwitch community.
The OP asked a specific question.
We went on to ignore the question and start all over again the same discussion that has been present in at least 10 other threads, including 2 recent and very active ones.
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Going to the original question. I have competed in Kona in 2022 and will be attending 2024.
I don’t know how it was pre 2020 but so far I can tell there is a huge difference in prices (flights, car rental, etc) and accomodation availability.
It’s still way more expensive than attending any race in Europe but 2024 is a lot less expensive than 2022 was. Accomodation was much easier to find and closer to the race, car rental is 1/3 of the price.
And I qualified the last possible weekend of this year.
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i would partly agree and partly disagree with your statement .
the right location for the world champs is important for the buzz and the cost.
and the split location is a downer for the worlds and for the expo and this answers most questions the op has i would say so why not answered in fine details its not completely wrong either i would say
i think it would be not completely wrong to say that roth has taken over to be the lead expo in triathlon to answer that specific question. but this is not just a kona split but just as much an impact that ironman has made it so hard for competing products of their main sponsors to be present and very high expo prices . but again here the split location has an impact . but i think there will be a change with the new ceo in this department for the future.
and one would assume the only good thing is that accommodation should be in theory be cheaper.
and only ryan has an idea if there will be a slow twitch gathering i would assume no.
I don’t know. That’s traditionally been Eric or Dan.
So…we shall see I guess?
Not for nothin’ but you left out the A’s and the Warriors moving from Philadelphia to the Bay Area
Let us not forget about the Colts moving from Baltimore to Indianapolis, in the middle of the night
lol, I was thinking the same thing, Not one person answered the op’s question.
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I raced last year in Nice and I am going to Kona shortly. The experience in Nice was simply immense - incredible course, properly hard, easy to find accommodation, welcoming locals (did you see all the banners “ville de nice” on teh course? They clearly paid for it) , nearby major airport. I’d be happy to go to Nice every year. I am of course biased as I am based in London, but before even getting to Kona I already spent 15K between flights and accomdation (going with family and kids) there is limited space and everything appears insanely expensive. And I don’t see the city rolling out the red carpet, to put it mildly… Happy to go once, but one and done for me.
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lol I promise you Hawaiians will not be welcoming you with open arms.