Oh FFS… a one weekend sporting event is now being compared to the take over of Hawaii… people are absolutely cooked.
Let’s just cancel everything. Every city everywhere in the world can draw similar parallels..
Good article.
Ideally, this should be the biggest weekend of the year for every business, and our fellows should be great ambassadors, by making it the cleanest week of Kona for the year…but why am I not surprised that some of these wealthy folks who qualify for this race also strip down on the side of the Queen K, march into the lava rocks and pop a squat. Triathletes are an entitled bunch. Live with aloha, tip heavily, be kind.
I can’t believe we have the stupid circle jerk comments by the same people, love you all, but you are wrong. Ironman is Kona, Kona is Ironman. Ironman tried to do the rotation thing, didn’t work.
The magic is real, and to be very clear, you won’t get that same magic elsewhere. Can’t wait for IMWC St Pete!
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Few years back I worked for IM race day logistics a few years in a row for Augusta 70.3. Part of the course shuts down let’s just say a part of town that has zero chance of people doing an triathlon and well will get zero financial impact from the race; but get shut down for the day. The amount of “comments” from the locals was interesting to hear because well the truth was very evident. The “poor” people were certainly not going to get any positive impact and they just had to take it having all those people impact their day. I don’t think I would have made it out alive if I would have just said “suck it up and deal with it”, that’s for sure (working as an staff course official, there were some “not so nice“ commets, directed toward me, so I just had to take it, smile and wish them a good day).
For as special Kona is, it’s also essentially a situation where it’s at max stress levels for basically all parties because it’s an limited resource venue. IM doing evening a temporary WC “rotation” has probaly shown that this probaly isn’t some permanent forever home; it can just as easily be cancelled by either party, as we have just seen it happen when one side or the other “takes it ball home”.
Why is it now being expected that everything in life is a transaction, where you should only do something if you get something in return?
Life is sometimes living with slight inconvenience knowing you are bringing joy to others as a result…
I love your innocence
Well it’s kind of being a part of society isn’t it? I hate to think we are getting to a point where everyone is so selfish/self centred that every social ‘norm’ or nicety is reduced to a transaction, where something is expected or demanded in return.
Hell I don’t follow any other sport, music festivals, art, parades etc but they regularly impact my life and in particular my commute times.
What do I get in return, absolutely nothing. BUT I know a lot of other people get enjoyment from those regular events so I deal with it…
The issue is most “events” that cities host have way less impact on the locals than triathlons do. Music concert- contained in a venue; new restaurant- contained to that small area. LC triathlon- can vary where much of your city is inconvenienced. So the footprint impact triathlon jas on the locals is going to generally always be much higher than other revenue generating events. It’s the nature of the beast.
The 2 day Kona had the mayor stuck in traffic on one of the days so you kinda knew that was going to go badly.
I’m going to believe the mayor over ST on this topic. He says the entire island is behind us. And he is an elected official and has the pulse of his constituents, right? (pink)
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Yes and as we’ve already seen things can change? It’s a beautiful relationship until it stops being that’s how it always goes down. I contend with the dynamics of everything it won’t be this on 10 years and IM will have to pivot just like they did when Kona single day was out of question during covid, and then they pivoted again post 2 day Kona year. It’s a great relationship but needs from parties tend to change from time to time. We just saw new leadership in Nice take IM for more money. There is nothing permanant with this type of demands by any means especially with how much the host cities basically have to sacrifice on race day- especially a town like Kona.
I am in the camp of feeling the local communities do derive benefit on the balance and these events net out well. Just pointing out how in this local community and every one, there are large groups who resent visitors. It’s why Ironman has to work with town councils, business and us to keep the friction minimal from the party we create for ourselves, because lots of locals get left out. Hawaii generally has the largest push back of all the event locations I have been at and it does not help that literally the entire world descends on their homes yearly. I don’t think most people know or care about some of the historical background of how Hawaii ended up being where they are, but it does shed some context of the mindset of some Hawaiians.
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Largely everything will work out fine this year, but Scott DeRue does not need to be worried about Kona and he has leverage as this sport is way bigger than an island in the Pacific and he keeps seeing that at every 70.3 worlds.
Walter O’Malley pulled that off with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957 and he even roped in Stoneham to move the NY Giants and that was 70 years ago. Dodgers and Giants did fine and thrived. I think DeRue has plenty of leverage over the town of Kona and should keep using it. He can easily move this event and be more than fine.
And I think it is OK to piss off the traditionalists if he wants to move on and go elsewhere. There will be new customers for triathlon. The old die hards will age out of the sport. We’re finally seeing 30-39 being the large age groups in many venue and none of them were doing the sport when Peter Reid, DeBoom, Faris, Stadler were winning Kona.
Memories are short. There was a time that Ironman Canada in Penticton was THE race to do outside of Kona in North America and Ironman Germany in Roth was the other one. Well they have a race in Roth that is not Ironman and an Ironman Germany in Frankfurt, and Ironman Canada is moved to Ottawa and doing just fine.
The Dodgers and the most racist use of eminent domain in my own memory. And somehow hispanic Americans are fans of that team that needs to be smited from out planet. What a great comparison!
Because a certain segment of the population is extremely racist and xenophobic. Like terribly so. Like among the worst in the USA levels of racist xenophobia. My wife was a teacher looking at jobs years ago on the island and was warned away from other teachers who worked there about how she would be treated as a white mainlander.
Combine that with the normal anti-cyclist, anti-event, anti-inconvenience hysteria.
Obviously, it’s a minority and the flip side is many Hawaiians are the salt of the earth and among the absolute best to be around.
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spot on @Lurker4
Yeah it can’t be overstated the general anti-mainland animosity exists with the locals of Hawaii. It’s not new and it’s not unique in regard to triathletes. That in and of itself isn’t going to spell the end of 45 years of racing on the Big Island.
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One can view this as “anti mainlander sentiment” or even “racist against anyone not native sentiment”…it’s why I pointed out the background because native “anyone” (be it Hawaiin or any indigenous people) can have limited tolerance for those that came and invaded their place. It’s the same in India where they kicked the Brits out (many Indians hate anything British beyond anything rational and the Indians got their land back but in many places like Hawaii, the locals did not). In Hawaii, the locals are dealing with external people who largely then never invited to take the place over.
So when foreigners come en mass and they don’t get a share of the economic upside it just builds on historical grievances. You can’t escape historical context, just understand how it affects perceptions and interactions. I am just used to being viewed as an outsider by others by doing nothing but standing there. When you guys stand around in Hawaii, they view you as an outsider and you can’t escape that, just accept that you’re not Hawaiin in Hawaii and they will inherently treat you differently.
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I’m not litigating if it’s justified or not, I’m just pointing out it exists in the context of this thread topic.
We are aligned, and historical context is just that. None of us can change what happened 130something years ago, but it does frame how we deal with each other.
When I was at IM South Africa in 2015, I spent some time to bike thru neighbouring townships, stop in snack bars and talk with locals. People thought I was crazy to bike through there (same place Fredrik Van Leirde got mugged in). Those people get nothing out of IM South Africa, but its all thru their land. Getting to know one another is key, and I know many triathletes do that in Kona too.
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General reply to a general reply…
What if we all got “caught” picking up debris on the side of the road? What if that’s what the drivers all saw? Triathletes out training and stopping every so often to pick up tacks, lumber scraps, trash, etc. Rather than pissing (thinking of you in the pink/blue spotted kit with the grey shorts, congrats on being so hydrated. Did you need to show everyone?) or riding two-abreast while looking at the traffic behind?
I’m not looking to litigate bad behavior or listen to rationalizing. Point is there have been a lot of good points in this thread, good articles, etc, and we should take the locals at their word. Respect the island, and endeavor to get caught doing something nice instead of crappy, realizing the latter is much easier to spot.
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I was conditioned by threads like this to be very mindful of the hostility towards the event by locals.
But then, one time I was standing over my bike at the red light atop Pulani when a native Hawaiian in a beat up car drove up beside me. He was a tough looking character. I said to him, “sorry to get in your way, I know you guys hate all the people clogging up the place.”
He said, “No, we need the money. Happy you guys are here.”
This is anecdotal, but the point is that there is a diversity of viewpoints. The most aggrieved make the most noise, but that could be someone that has to wait five minutes in traffic to go to the grocery store.
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