Well for an 80 year old woman that is not too bad, right???
Another Kona complaining thread -
Basically, every Female in Copenhagen “qualified”. I think they should eliminate the word “qualification”, it implies some standard of minimum ability.
One women who swam a 1:50 ( and will find the Kona swim extremely difficult) placed 2,330 out of 2,367 got a spot.
I feel bad for the previous female competitors who spent years fighting to get KQ spots and now they don’t mean anything.
Looks like 35 spots. How did they all qualify?
Well for an 80 year old woman that is not too bad, right???
If that was true… 100% deserving, but sadly its for the 45-49 category.
well at least she was out doing a race and not scrolling through results to find the slowest KQ person in the results list. Honestly, do not know why other people care so much
I feel bad for the previous female competitors who spent years fighting to get KQ spots and now they don’t mean anything.//
Well since there has been only one race thus far for the women in Nice, and it was relatively easy to get too, not sure who you are feeling sorry for here?? Give it some time, and if it morphs into the race that WTC hopes it will, then it will get more competitive. If not, it will die or be moved somewhere else, but nothing to feel sorry about really…
The fast people who want to be there will still be there. Ironman have a race to fill so if the Q times are getting slower then so be it.
When they increase the number of Kona slots for women to be roughly equal to the number of women interested in going to Kona, this will happen. If in order to get to Kona as a woman, you basically have to complete an Ironman, that’s still a qualification.
As has been pointed out many times, initially to “qualify” for Kona as a man or woman, you basically had to “show up” for the early years. That was obviously the case when the market of Ironman racing athletes was slim to none. Well, the market of Ironman racing female athletes is more than those early years, but still not enough to make it overly difficult (other than the task of completion) to qualify for Kona.
If that means more women in the early years can Kona qualify, who cares. The real danger is not in eroding the prestige of a Kona slot, but in Ironman focusing too much on the women’s field to the detriment of the more profitable men’s field. Meaning - if there are more men who are willing and able to fight for a Kona slot than women, Ironman should be doing whatever it can, economically speaking, to get as much revenue out of those guys as they can.
A system that didn’t care about the “optics” of unequal participation for populations that don’t care to participate would look at the pool of male customers and combine the pool of Kona racers on the female years with certain male age groups. Offering more chance at slots to the larger customer base would be a good business move.
Remember when we beat this topic into the ground, stomped on it, beat it some more and finally let it die? If you’re not a woman and are not directly impacted, then let it go. If you KQed
nd someone slower than you also KQed, but is slower, does that lessen your achievement? I don’t get why people can’t just let this go. Venting on slow twitch isn’t going to change IM’s mind about how exclusive to make their premier event.
Am I the only one thinking 1:50 for a lady in none wetsuit swim is decent?
One day co-ed Kona is the solution.
well at least she was out doing a race and not scrolling through results to find the slowest KQ person in the results list. Honestly, do not know why other people care so much
This is such a good response, just wanted to call it out.
After this year’s edition the men won’t have a whole bunch of previously qualified athletes that were allowed to skip Nice and roll to Kona. Ironman will have a lot more slots to offer and my bet is that qualification standards will go down significantly for men as well. I’ve been to several 70.3s where it was a ‘anyone can go’ situation, it doesn’t seem to draw a lot of commentary.
The race offered slots for women to both Nice 2024 and Kona 2025. I am curious re: how both these race slots were allocated. Please share since you were paying so close attention.
Copenhagen has always been “easier” to qualify for the WCs of the same year because it happens so soon after the race and not a lot of people from that area can travel halfway around the world a month later. My guess is that if Kona 2025 slots were also harder to give away, cost of travel is still the main prohibiter…even if they have a year save up for it.
NOTE: I know people who wanted to go to Nice this year and who couldn’t get a slot because they happened to pick races where people really wanted their slots. Just because it’s “easier” to qualify for WCs doesn’t make it “easy”.
Am I the only one thinking 1:50 for a lady in none wetsuit swim is decent?
Yes. I’m a slow swimmer, but 2:50/100m is VERY slow.
well at least she was out doing a race and not scrolling through results to find the slowest KQ person in the results list. Honestly, do not know why other people care so much
Vols appreciated it too, but favorite reply is this 
every in Copenhagen “qualified”.
I think they should eliminate the word “qualification”, it implies some standard of minimum ability.
I feel bad for the previous female competitors who spent years fighting to get KQ spots and now they don’t mean anything.Nope. Qualification means just that: met the requirements of qualification. You may wish to infer all sorts of things but the word “qualification” implies nothing more than what it says. You seem to seek to force your distorted values on others, in a whiny way.
“Previous female competitors who to get KQ spots” got what they fought for: it meant a lot then: I hope they treasure the memory.
Would you also opine: “I feel bad for the previous competitors who spent years fighting to get KQ spots and now the number of slots has increased they don’t mean anything”.
I feel pleased for the current female aspirants who, because the number of starts available has increased, is equal M/W, so have a much better chance of getting a slot.
Anyone who wants to go back to a single day in a venue (NB two days racing is not available in Kona though could be in Nice) needs to square that wish with the dramatic reduction in men’s slots: think of the (very reasonable) howls of anguish. **I’d feel bad **for the second tier men who would never gain a slot.
Well for an 80 year old woman that is not too bad, right???
If that was true… 100% deserving, but sadly its for the 45-49 category.
So women complained for decades that it was so hard to qualify (i.e. 1 slot per age group), now y’all complaining that it is too easy to qualify?
We beat this to absolute death last year.
I genuinely don’t care what any dudes have to say about this after hearing the overwhelming majority of women who were at Nice last year say that it was awesome to have a female only race.
I do wish men and women were in the same location, but whining about female qualifying times when you are male is pathetic.
After this year’s edition the men won’t have a whole bunch of previously qualified athletes that were allowed to skip Nice and roll to Kona. Ironman will have a lot more slots to offer and my bet is that qualification standards will go down significantly for men as well. I’ve been to several 70.3s where it was a ‘anyone can go’ situation, it doesn’t seem to draw a lot of commentary.
M30-34 rolled to 32nd at Frankfurt. They had 11 slots.
Well for an 80 year old woman that is not too bad, right???
If that was true… 100% deserving, but sadly its for the 45-49 category.
So women complained for decades that it was so hard to qualify (i.e. 1 slot per age group), now y’all complaining that it is too easy to qualify?
Only (some of) the men seem to be complaining.