I want to caution one thing about “cut offs”. For the most part, the WC is the “victory lap” for likely the overwhelming majority of athletes who qualify. The “PR” type of work went into KQ’ing in the 1st place. Yes everyone wants to “do their best” at. WC, but I know many use Kona as this “go enjoy experience” vs “you have to KQ or it’s a failure experience”.
With a 12 hrs cutoff and 1:30 bike cutoff on Day 1 you could do Sat + Sun and free up roads on work days. People would still have Sat afternoon to do errands etc. The problem is the 17 hrs cut off and 5:30 pm bike cut off on both days. And this formula could be applied to other locations to rotate worlds to.
1:30 pm bike course shut down would make things no worse than 70.3 Worlds back to back days. Maybe the bike course has to stay open till 2 pm (6:30 start + 1.5 hrs for swim and T1 + 6 hrs bike) but close enough to sell locally that it opens up “after lunch”
Agreed, that’s why if you don’t want to do the “championship race” on Day 1, you can do the Championship tour on day 2. You would still get to pick which one you want to do. Same with women even though they are in Day 2, they can get a different medal if they beat the 13 hrs (fore example)
Uh nothing, your income level has to do with your post about “why would you go to Hawai’i for 17 days” post. I’m extrapolating from what you write based on years of you posting. I don’t understand why you’d be mad, you have clearly worked exceptionally hard to get there and that’s awesome. But it drives a completely different perspective from MOST people. That’s the point.
The cutoff which is below a quote post is separate. The cutoff is not relevant to the population on the island, the issue is that Triathletes are bad citizens compare to other tourists AND that the roads being closed in the morning are the problems.
Wait your trying to figure out a 2 day event over what 4 day calendar period. I don’t think there is an actual viable solution, the “solution” is back to back weekends as a far more realistic solution than what your solution is trying to solve. I also don’t think the solution is “oh your old, you get to race in the “lesser” world championship event”. If you want to make the race splits tighter, great. But you can’t move the goal posts for basically one singular race when the overwhelming majority all race under different rules (I know there is probaly some IM out there that has a different time cut off out there, I’m not going to purge through what 150 IM events just to know it, but I know a few races out there have tighter windows).
I also think when you talk about time cut offs, you also have to factor in clearing/cleaning the course by the volunteers/officials. So suddenly it’s not as quick as you think it is “oh the last person is done, BOOM the course gets opened”. There’s a lag period that has to be there for the safety of your own race staff.
Re: Saturday and Sunday, Hawaii has quite a lot of church going Latter-day Saints and other Christian faiths who try to avoid Sunday activities outside of church. And it’s good sized group that makes up a decent percentage of volunteers.
Running the race on Sunday in Kona would not only basically cancel church, but then ask them to volunteer as well.
I can imagine the spirit of aloha inspiring that attitude in a different world, but not the one of the last few decades.
That’s where my thinking is as well.
Here’s from the @Bryancd 's thread weeks ago:
Men’s IMWC switching from Nice to Kona in 2025 (rumour)? Would Kona authorities/community be up for consecutive Saturdays?:
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This is the only way IM will get back to both IMWCs in Hawaii.
Races on successive days is out (even if ‘they’ could roll the Kona devout over for a Sunday) even with Dev’s harebrained ‘reduce the time limit’ schemes: the volunteer load (and indeed the working hours for paid staff) make this ‘literally’ impractical.
And weekdays are out.
Sensible way ahead is to move the IMWC to a place which can manage two days 30 hours apart for (say) 5000 athletes (uneven split), preferably on a rolling basis of maybe four fantastic venues.
The big question that needs research: How much more would the average AGWC qualifier be willing to pay for entry to Kona v. entry to AGWC at any other venue?
If there’s a big enough group willing to pay $3000 entry then it goes to Kona every year full stop. I’d bet there’s >5000 men and women willing to pay that much. Once the price gets high enough all the other challenges can be solved with the extra money.
I think if ironman wanted more money they should make ironman kona a lottery age group race every 2 years when Worlds moves and then charge age groupers $250 to sign up for the lottery of 2000 racers and then $3000 race fee to do the Ironman Kona when the worlds is moving that year some where new.
you would get more athletes with a lot of money to spend that the faster racers that train more then work.
and just make it once you win the lotto spot in 2026 for your 2027 kona race you have to do an ironman successfully before race day to prove yourself before the race.
I like the day 1 reduce the time limit idea and squash the starts together more like a single mass start, maybe also a signing incentive for racers on sat to volunteer on Sunday thus getting around some of the labor issue, if 1 in 4 did it that’s 700 ppl potentially. More if friends and family incentivised too.
2 days back to back sat / sun and some degree of road opening on Sat super early then mid afternoon might be enough to tip the scales, for businesses the midweek thur Fri closure was apparently quite disruptive.
If you could get 25% of IM racers to volunteer at the next day, I’d hail you as the immediate CEO of IM.
(I would guess they couldn’t even get 10% of an IM field to volunteer 24 hours after an race).
No way in hell an organization can count of the bulk of the volunteers being from the athletes/friends of athletes who just raced all day prior. What incentives are you suggesting to make that happen?
They tried the lottery route and had to abandon when they lost a court case saying it was illegal.
And I dont know why folks are still talking two days back to back or even a week apart. The biggest problem when I was there that week was the lack of rooms, cars, and just space on the roads and everything else on the island. Rates quadrupled in some places, and cars were just gone at any price. It isn’t just about the race on race day, there is an experience to be had prior and after, and that was pretty much ruined or so costly that it just sucked.
I still think if you want to have both races in Kona, it needs to be at least two weeks apart, preferably 3 or more. Two gets you some connection for sponsors and such, but the majority will have left the island right after the first race and that opens up most rooms and cars for the next lot of racers.
yes some stay longer, but that is ok to have some overlap, like maybe 10% or so. Island can handle that, just not both there at the same time. And rolling back the numbers to the old days is a silly argument, that is never going to happen, this is a business after all, beyond all the hopes you all have for them…
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But which is more realistic? Cus they just did the option you think can’t work (it was a Thur-Sat timeline) just what 2 years ago? (and yes there was lots of issues that you prescribed, but guess what it worked). The option you are suggesting basically means the race/island has to “reset” itself, which I would think would not be the point of having both races at the same location essentially, especially for an race location that is like Hawaii.
I’m in the if its going to be 2 races it’s going to have to be weekend apart strategy (not the back to back days)
How did it work, the island said no mas after this event?? You see I consider something that works when the host city has a positive experience. Kind of important to have that, yes???
The week apart could possibly work, but then you will have a much larger % of the first group staying and thus the hotel/car/crowded scenario. I suppose if someone did a study and found out that “most” of the athletes stayed less than 6 days and left right after the race, it might work. But I just dont think that is the case, most the first group would be leaving on Monday/tuesday like normal, which is too short a window for most the 2nd group that no doubt stay a week or longer before their race.
Two weeks apart captures most of the leaving and arriving athletes with little crossover…
Right but the “issue” is more solved by doing races on weekends for the most part. So I don’t necessarily think back to back days and week apart should be tied together that you did. The “work day” was the issue of why they got booted off the island, not necessarily the overcrowding that you were talking about. A week apart (Sat-Sat race dates) may or may not improve the “overcrowding” but it certainly improves the “strain” on the locals route with life disruption (race on a “work day” like last time).
So again I’m going to say realistically, week apart would be very likely more ideal than weeks/month apart for an location like Hawaii imo. You see I consider what can realisitically work for an race organization as well.
The lottery is a no good, very bad idea. No More Kona Lottery - Slowtwitch News
(ironically, that whole saga led to me meeting Dan…and working for Slowtwitch…and meeting Dave Deschenes, and fundraising for the Foundation…and then meeting Messick. It all comes full circle.)
That’s prohibitively difficult for all the brand partners. One week is potentially doable. Otherwise, the expo would be dead.
So let’s say they can’t do 2 days for whatever reason.
What has the be the format to have the least amount of interference for the pro women? I would think a 1 hour head start would get them through almost all of the bike, but I don’t know that timeline really is feasible with sunlight.
30 mins would still mean over half the pro men likely catch and have to ride through the pro women.
Normal start will keep the same standard “inteference” we’ve seen at all the races over all the years.
I think it would be better to start the pro men first, then the pro women. It’s the AG men that are the biggest issue for the pro women. So stagger the start sufficiently to let the pro women get way up the road, start the slower AG men and women earlier. I mean, this past October, I was in the last wave and we started at 7:45! So they can go pretty late in the morning with start times.