Gender discussion aside with the financial situation in the world, added to the current political situation in the US it’ll be interesting to see how this affects participation. It was already a pain to get a Visa and travel, now that situation is umpteen times worse for non-America based people.
The cost of racing in Kona will always keep the one and done statistics high one would think too.
as much as I dont like the ironman worlds in one of the most difficult places to reach.
there is this one reason… most people that have no idea about ironman know about the ironman in Hawaii.
and there is not a single location in the world that can match that.
and I understand its hard to give up such a thing , given that branding those days is more important than quality
ie most people would agree nice is the better course but does not have the branding.
This is for 140.6 only. Before it’s demise, ObsTri used to have similar participation data for 70.3, which is at a much higher rate for women (60/40 from what I can remember). It would be interesting to see this updated for the last 5 years.
Well, this is pretty much what IM confirmed in their own market research through last year, women are 18% of the field for a full.
You can tease out the 70.3 numbers by using the data here:
Anyone who as raced once is included. I’ve done it before and I’m pretty sure it’s not close to 60/40. If I recall, much lower. I went down this road once before and was shocked at the baseline number of participants Ironman was essentially trying to sell worlds slots too. We already know less want to race a full than a half, so getting someone to signup for a full championship will be even harder than a half championship. We also know that women race less then men, so getting women to race again at a championship will be even less likely. So that stacks the deck in a way that suggests you need EVEN MORE women, not less women then men if you want to fill a big event with them.
The uptake number IM needed to convert to wanting to race a worlds event is very high. It’s probably not even sustainable in the long term to give women their own day in Kona. Initially, they can get close to filling the day, but over time, there will be less and less interested. Men have a pretty deep pool to draw on, plus general eagerness to go.
The women’s only day was as much about giving men more slots as it was about women (in my view) since Ironman has a big base of male customers willing to spend the money.
The first time I went to ITU worlds in 1994, the women and men’s slots in each age group for each country were identical.
That was 31 years ago.
No one was complaining back then. I went on team Canada in 25-29 and the competition was fierce to get a slot (I was second at nationals with 2 slots in that qual race, there were other races across Canada). I remember meeting a girl in my age group who qualified at a race elsewhere in Canada. She raced her qual race as her first tri on a borrowed mountain bike with running shoes. I had to go sub 2 hrs to get my slot (not bad at that time…there were faster people nationally but they were racing pro and the really fast guys were in 30-34). In any case, it made no difference if she waltzed in and I had to kill myself doing a sub 2 to get my slot, my path made no difference to hers nor hers to mine. We all knew going in that it was equal slots.
Which is why I think they needed to do a two day 140.6 worlds, because the 40-59 year old men will never be happy. The reality is there are more of them (and I just left that group) on the start line, because global society makes it easier for them M40-59 to do triathlons. There are just less women on start lines of long tris at your local races because society gets in the way. Does not mean they should also be penalized because society already got in the way of their participation.
Just give equal slots to worlds recognizing this reality
I’d even be skeptical of a 4 year, 4 location rotating WC format working. I think the only thing you really need to look at is why people are racing the WC. For a some I’m sure that there’s the WC, compete against the best, try and win a championship aspect driving their participation. But if you qualified by getting 8th in your AG at IM Chattanooga and getting lucky with a roll down I’m pretty sure you’re only registering because of the Kona history/mystique/bucket list aspect. If it’s IMWC in Western Australia I think that slot probably keeps on rolling for a while. Yeah, I think you’ll still fill out the field, particularly for men, but it’ll be quite funky and weirdly top-heavy.
Honesty, I think the only way another location can work is if it can match Kona on the bucket list factor. I think you can count the number of full distance races that fit that bill on one hand even if you lost 4 fingers. I highly doubt they’ll manage to swing an IMWC in Roth though, so… shrug
I would put a decent of amount money that the number of slots between men and women (before initiative slots) is not equal. And probably far from it. It will be more like 70% men, 30% women.
This is equity and not equality. If Ironman does that they will continue to bite the hand that feeds them.
It doesn’t make business sense at all. Also why would you increase the professional numbers when the slots weren’t getting filled when they went to 50 each?
This piqued my interest: what is the recent history on Pro field sizes (reflecting the differing circumstances: post-pandemic and venues)?
| Year | Women | Men | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 44 | 54 | N/K |
| 2023 | 49 | 49 | K/N |
| 2022 | 43 | 50 | K/K |
| 2021 | 22 | 38 | May 22 StG |
| 2019 | 42 | 52 | K/K |
Fifty is plenty.
To double down on what you’re saying, there’s a simple thought experiment.
Imagine you’re an independent organisation organising the world championship of a new distance in triathlon. How would you set up the system for people to sign up/qualify to this race?
What would you come up with? You will most likely come up with something similar to what those international sports bodies do. Either no requirements, or slots per country and defer to national bodies, or qualification times.
You wouldn’t come up with something like IM has. The only situation in which you would come up with the IM slot allocation system is if you are a for profit organisation that also owns all the qualifying races. And that has decided that qualifying is a prize awarded at said races.
A lot of equality is lost by:
It’s easy to forget, but the IM system already has put a number of critical constraints on the IM distance Vs other sports.
but in fairness apart from uk and usa and in the last few years Mexico hardly any fed ever maxes out the slots male or female. and really only uk and usa have some level of real qualification to get to age group race, for most countries its pay the crazy entry fees and uniform fee and you are in.
Also worth noting, this “World Championship” is completely made up by said for profit company. I think we often forget that and start comparing it to other world Championship events which are governed by a recognized international sporting body.
Ironman “World Championship” is recognized and has been awarded that title by World Triathlon (formerly ITU)… it’s not true that they’re just making it up.
They went through the same process that the PTO did to create the T100 World Championship Tour
For the pros, sure, but not for AGers in completely arbitrary age groups.
That was at best a “hand shake” gentlemen’s agreement what 30 years ago or whatever. IM could do whatever it wants with it’s qualifying process, there are essentially no standards, unlike the governing body’s actual qualifying process that would have to be reviewed by boards, voted on by federations.
IM could flip the process any which way it wants, hell they can ignore WT whenever it wants, by simply adding it’s own rules to the rulebook even though they want to “align” with the governing body (and does when it fits what they want to do). For all intent purposes it’s a legit world championship and can be as made up as they want.
It’s kinda funny…if we went to qualifying time, like a Boston, how does that even work? People on this board just complain about Ironman to complain. What would the times even be.
I know someone who only races Olympic distance events just so she can go to ITU worlds every year, former D1 swimmer I think they were trying to go pro at some point. But literally goes to ITU worlds every year. That’s about as fake of a world championship as one could think. Kinda like how we have a Division 3 National Championship in club rugby here. Like why are we having a natty for what is effectively a social division. (That is ITU worlds but at a global level)
For the longest time the only real official connection was that Ironman had to bow to ITU sanctioning via the insurance requirements of the local governing bodies tied to the ITU (USAT,TriCAN etc,etc,etc). No local sanctioning ,no insurance and no race. In fact essentially, once the start gun is fired ,Ironman loses control of the race to the officials from the local governing body who supervise rules and safety.
It wasn’t until 2016/17 when they “officially” got together and World Triathlon started to have real world influence on what Ironman does and even that is fairly limited.
ITU & IRONMAN agree to historic partnership
They would never go to a time based cut line because unlike in Boston. IM owns all the qualifying races and WC race. IM needs full races at every location.
The point is ITU Worlds is just a value extraction exercise to support their professional race, it’s not meant to be a true amateur championship. (Also ITU Worlds Slots do roll down)
