Anyone have a guesstimate on slot breakdown in a 100 slot race? 75 Slot?

Triathlon Forum
1

With Kona qual changing up a bit next year…

It’s difficult trying to pick a race to shoot for.
Anyone have examples of past races and slot break down for a 100 slot race and a 75 slot race?
(yes, the slot allocation equation probably will be tweaked)

2

With Kona qual changing up a bit next year…

It’s difficult trying to pick a race to shoot for.
Anyone have examples of past races and slot break down for a 100 slot race and a 75 slot race?
(yes, the slot allocation equation probably will be tweaked)

The only given is that 24 max will go to any age group with a starter. The rest are allocated based on the number of starters in each age group. One approach is to pick a race with lots of others in your age group which will maximize the slots available.

If you search there are spreadsheets available from folks that have closely. Arched the IM slot distribution approach.

For an easy check of past KQ qualifiers at a number of IMs check out the Coach Cox site for race statistics.

3

I run the slot breakdown for all the ironman races I run a few weeks out and can kind of give you an answer:

First a few disclaimers:

  • Ironman uses a slight variation of the D’Hondt Method to allocate slots and so does my spreadsheet
  • I use the list of registered participants that ironman publishes every so often leading up to a race with their gender and ages.
  • NOTE: The only data available leading up to a race is REGISTERED racers. Ironman allocates slots based off STARTERS which is always lower due to some DNS.
  • For the numbers below I’ve used the registered list of IMTX 2022 (4/23/22) published on 3/31/22, which is approx 3 weeks out from the race

Screenshot 2022-07-30 114517.png

4

Curious how do you think the extra 50,65 and 100 slots for women will change your chart?

Unfortunately, I understand and support increasing the women’s field but there will be a lot of women who will have really slow qualifying times and with sending women off in waves will definitely clog up the swim unnecessarily and, thus, potentially alter one’s race.

Personally believe anyone (male and female) who podiums at Kona should automatically get an entry for the next year’s race as they have proven that they are capable of competing in Kona.

5

If the reason that a race was able to increase to 100 slots is because the women are racing on a different day at Kona, doesn’t that imply that 50 of the slots will go to the men and 50 to the women? I didn’t do the math on your table, but I would think the mens breakdown would remain close to what you show for a 75 slot race and the women will have more than you show for the 100 slot race? Or I guess both would look like the men’s 75 slot allocation.

6

Slot Allocation (ironman.com)

It certain races (17 actually) women get an additional 50, 65, or 100 additional slots allocated just to women.

7

Curious how do you think the extra 50,65 and 100 slots for women will change your chart?

If the reason that a race was able to increase to 100 slots is because the women are racing on a different day at Kona, doesn’t that imply that 50 of the slots will go to the men and 50 to the women? I didn’t do the math on your table, but I would think the mens breakdown would remain close to what you show for a 75 slot race and the women will have more than you show for the 100 slot race? Or I guess both would look like the men’s 75 slot allocation.

Great questions. There are way more permutations of the effect of extra women for tri slots than my original table.

  • 55 slot race + 100 women for tri (Chattanooga, Arizona, Coeur d’Alene, Lake Placid, Kalmar, Mont Tremblant, Copenhagen)
  • 55 slot race + 50 women for tri (Western Australia, New Zealand, France, UK, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Ireland)
  • 55 slot race + 65 women for tri (Hamburg)
  • 100 slot race + 65 women for tri (South Africa, IMTX, Cairns)

The way I would assume Ironman would handle this would be to first give out the normal slots for the race per the table above. This would mean men would get more since men are a greater population of the field. Then they would give out the women for tri slots , assuming the men’s field did not exist, using the same method to the women’s age groups only.

To answer Torrey’s question directly: In a 100 slot race, 50 slots are not allocated evenly to each gender. Ironman makes up the missing registrants for the women’s race day with the women for tri slots. You’ll notice in the 100 slot race that 70 are allocated to men and 30 to women (before allocating the women for tri slots).

Lets take the most extreme example where the most slots are given out: 100 slot race + 65 women for tri

Assumptions:

  • Same data set from IMTX 2022 I used to calculate the above breakdown
  • Allocate 65 additional slots assuming men’s field does not exist and cannot gain additional slots

Results

Men slot allocation stays the same

F 20-24 +1 and 2 total
F 25-29 +3 and 5 total
F 30-34 +6 and 9 total
F 35-39 +9 and 13 total
F 40-44 +14 and 19 total
F 45-49 +12 and 17 total
F 50-54 +9 and 13 total
F 55-59 +7 and 10 total
F 60-64 +3 and 4 total
F 65-69 +1 and 2 total
F 70-74 +0 and 1 total
F 75-79 +0 and 0 total
F 80-84 +0 and 0 total
F 85-89 +0 and 0 total

Observation: This means the race would have 70 slots total for men and 95 total for women.

Additional note: The data set above did contain some relatively old men so they took up a slot but the women’s group did not.