Step 1 is getting these athletes out of a “non-qualifying” division and giving them at least some chance to participate. Letting them compete as AG men satisfies that minimum step.
After that, maybe someone smarter than me can come up with a fair way to calculate virtual times.
Or, you know, offer a non-binary category (separate from ODiv) and then determine acceptable standard criteria.
@E_DUB thanks for accommodating @timbasile’s thoughts. On other threads I felt his thoughts were balanced and he represents that cohort ofem on the bubble who put their heart and soul.into a KQ chance. I was in that boat 20 years ago and got my KQ chance after 15 years of near misses so I empathize with that entire cohort
I believe IM tried to address the previous unfairness of “slot rolls to someone who is ranked pretty far down, while someone in another AG who took 2nd gets a goosegg”, but they based it on overall racing coefficients. Instead the math could be simplified to be your place in your age group in that race. Example:
First, that doesn’t really change anything. In multiple countries, you can change your legal gender by self-declaration without any checks whatsoever if somebody is really trans or just lying about their gender.
Secondly, the separation of men and women in sports is not about gender but about biological sex and the physical differences in performance between the sexes. Already today, being legally female isn’t sufficient on its own to be allowed to start in the women’s field, for the obvious reason that it would be grossly unfair to allow trans women who have not undergone medical transition to compete against cis women.
Non-binary is a social category, not a biological one. But while biological sex has a large impact on performance, gender identity does not impact performance. Using the same coefficients as for men ensures that nobody can gain any competitive advantage by getting into the non-binary category. It thereby avoids the very real risk that a non-binary category quickly turns into a category for men who lie about their gender identity.
that is just a more convoluted way mirroring the old system. Once again a high place does not mean you had a great race worthy of a Kona slot. I get the 1st in each AG, that makes sense. But after that it can vary so wildly that many great races will be left in the cold to ones that would never sniff a Kona slot in a million years. That is the dynamic they wanted to get away from, your plan has no guardrails for it happening once again…
Nobody is changing their drivers licence to get into Kona or Boston.
all very good in theory …
sadly the cold hard reality is Ironman is a company and its primary goal is to make $$$ for its shareholders.
it relies on the high male participation to improve profits. Its been reported the female only WC events have lost $$ for the company.
its all “lip service” to have all genders race on a single day … its all to do with profits…
the athletes pay a high premium for WC races with very little extra benefit. to race in Kona is crazy expensive and then add a registration fee +50% higher than your qualifying race…its the extra elite $$$ race… not to mention the locals are tired of the event as we saw there were shortages of volunteers for the 2025 event…
the Ironman company is is trying to save face with its push for more women in the sport with over history another reality check point is females in general aren’t as crazy as males and don’t have the desire to race IM races this is why there is less than 20% of women compete..
ironman needs to be very careful that males start to leave their branded races for other options whereby the athletes are treated well…
The original system was better in my opinion with some minor modifications, that could include larger age groups combined as Under 30, 31-40, 40-50, 50-60, 60-70. Another option on top of this would be to weight the slot allocation in entry numbers eg all age groups start out 1 slot each for first 20 entrants. for age group with more the 40 entrants there a 3 slots total, for age groups with more then 100 entrants 5 slots, and then more then 150 entrants 6 slots (this would have to be worked out with some % for how many slots the race has). The aim here is to stop extremely large age groups from absorbing all the slots. And if we made the age groups larger we avoid for example first time 18-24 years old’s getting a slot in uncompetitive times and encourage them to stay in the sport and improve and eventually get a slot. We not here to reward mediocracy.
I have some women in my club, they did one ironman, got a middle of road time, got a kona roll down, now after doing Kona have no interest in Ironman anymore, so Ironman has missed out on that same person racing 3-4-5 times chasing a slot. It is meant to be hard, and then there is legacy which is a great program to create a pathway for anyone, although I think 12 is ridiculous, aim for 10 that’s heaps.
Well, there’s no chance a 50 year old beats a 40 year old or a 60 year old beat a 50 year old so that does not work.
I just took a look at Ironman California and for women and men if we combined 40-49 the results and there is an advantage to the younger portion of that 10 year bracket but it could work as a qualification.
Women
1st 40-44 - 9.34
2nd 45-49 - 9.38
3rd 40-44 - 10.01
4th 40-44 - 10.05
5th 45-49 - 10.13
6th 40-44 - 10.23
For the men
1st 45-49 - 8.29,
2nd 40-44 - 8.32
3rd 40-44 - 8.33
4th 40-44 - 8.40
5th 45-49 - 8.43
6th 40-44 - 8.49
Looking at combined 50-60 there is a too big of a gap from the younger results and that is not suitable having reflected on the results.
Call me an a-hole, but what are the barriers that women in the United States and Canada face in desiring to train for triathlon let alone Ironman. If you say Motherhood, I’ll give you that one. But anyone who was born after 1980 has no barriers installed against their participation for sports if they desired it as an adult.
Making decisions based on feel can be both goof and bad, as we’ve seen from the other thread. Women are slightly underperforming against the previous method. Based on what we’ve seen so far it’s the old guys who are getting the rewards and the young men who may stay in the sport 20 years who are getting shafted.
Young men and young women who enter this sport are actually quite similar. If what you’re suggesting is altering qualification to target those who could pay the bills longer, then older women get less slots also.
So non-binary in your view can’t be a genetic and biological male? It can only be a female?
How many people are we talking about here who have registered in the open division. 2? Are they even fast?
How does being non-binary work if it is a female who is on HRT? Would USADA give them a TUE for that?
Biologically male athletes who identify as non-binary would gain no advantage in doing so, because they would still have to match the same qualification standards as men. This assumes that qualification for non-binary athletes will be via the performance pool process only and that there will be no slots reserved specifically for non-binary athletes,
This is the best article written on the new qualification system! Yes, it still has some flaws, but it truly provides the fairest system that I have seen in my 40+ years in the sport. I agree that factoring system needs some adjustments, but time performance-based allocations should be the way forward for the additional slots after the age group slot is awarded. There are a lot of good suggestions on how to improve the factoring and Ironman should take these suggestions into account when updating the table for the next qualification period. If increasing participation is the business goal, Ironman may want to consider adding some value to the AWA rankings by awarding a slot to the highest point ranked athlete in each age group who has not qualified.
Reading the evolution of suggestions here, it feels like we are just getting closer to closer to the old system of proportional slots based AG size + a few dedicated WomenForTri Slot….. we have come full circle
Here are my thoughts. I think the tail of the 20-39 age groups are not reflected in the coefficients for the top 20 percent in the last 5 Konas.
Here is what I would do.
Keep the new system, but recalculate coefficient based off top 50 athletes in Kona. The performance of the top 20% would be reduced by those behind, or in the case of small age groups the sample size would get better. It may benefit some women age groups.
Make the 1.00 factors the pro performances. Then everyone is a percentage of pros, so it compresses the scale for everyone. Each actual second on the road becomes less of an issue due to age and sex scaling
Have a “floor” to the women’s field size calculated and published in advance. If this number is not being reached by June 1, add women for tri slots in June/July/Aug Ironmans and give the slots out in the order of women placement in the performance list after all the “normal slots” go. This latter action can be declared in this qualifying year so anyone who missed a performance slot this fall can give it another go next summer. That’s what most men who miss a KQ in the fall have to do anyway. I’m not a fan of handing out slots after the fact and changing the framework for a race already done in retrospect. I’d prefer giving people another chance, but go race again if you are serious about wanting Kona and you may need to race against some fast women who did Kona 2025, however, there are more women’s slots too.
I have edited your proposal down to its bones, excluding the various conflicting objectives and optics. Have I been fair?
Wait, non binary exists in triathlon? Thought that was ousted by its.
Anyways, the best fix for qualifying would be to go by Boston marathon method. Complete you race by certain date, then adjust slot winnings by formulas . No more day after awarding/ roll downs
Quality trolling. You’ve missed the euphoria element of the roll down and the wife’s steady hand on (insert part of body) in the cool light of a family budget. Key threat to the whole IRONMAN business model, if you reckon the lure of a Kona slot is a significant element.