“Athletes who are SELECTED through the Ironman Lottery must have completed an Ironman or Ironman 70.3 event within one year of the 2011 Ford Ironman World Championship to validate his/her lottery slot.”
Is it me or did the validation before only require completion of any 70.3 (I thought I read this fairly carefully last year before I signed up the Lottery and didn’t recall such language)? Wouldn’t surprise if this was yet a further plot to ensure additional revenue for the Ironman series…
I happened to have a copy of my lottery registration from active, from a couple of years ago:
Important Information Regarding Your Registration:
The 2008 Event will be held on October 11th in Kailua-Kona, HI The lottery results will be posted on April 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm EST on www.ironmanlive.com.
Athletes who are SELECTED through the Ironman Lottery must have completed an Ironman and/or a 70.3-qualifying event within one year of the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championship to validate his/her lottery slot. Lottery winners should plan on completing the validating race before August 31, 2008, and all validating information should be received in the Kona Race Office by August 31st, 2008. Failure to comply will result in forfeiture of the lottery slot. World Triathlon Corporation has contracted the independent accounting firm of Price Donoghue Ridenour to supervise and certify the 2008 U.S. and International Ironman Lottery selection.
Thank you for your Ironman support,
World Triathlon Corporation
Looks to me (as a lawyer) like the old langauge is a bit more ambiguous as to what would constitute a “70.3-qualifying event”…now it seems clear that it must be an official “Ironman 70.3 event”
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“Athletes who are SELECTED through the Ironman Lottery must have completed an Ironman or Ironman 70.3 event within one year of the 2011 Ford Ironman World Championship to validate his/her lottery slot.”
Is it me or did the validation before only require completion of any 70.3 (I thought I read this fairly carefully last year before I signed up the Lottery and didn’t recall such language)? Wouldn’t surprise if this was yet a further plot to ensure additional revenue for the Ironman series…
As much as i dislike WTC taking over the world. i really don’t see this as a big deal. They are giving you entry into a world championship, the most sought after one for that matter. It makes perfect sense that they would require you to race one of their races.
they can do whatever they want to do but the original purpose behind the rule (from my understanding) was to ensure the lottery winner is fit enough to complete at least a 1/2 IM…now it is that plus another way to make sure you do their 70.3 and not another 1/2 IM to validate the slot.
If you don’t like the requirements imposed by WTC to get into Kona, then pass it onto the next person.
If you look at it the other way, everyone who QUALIFIED for Kona, had to do at least one WTC event in the first place.
I always assumed if people won the lottery that they were going to validate with an IM brand race (seems like common sense to me). I guess because they needed an actual rule, that there must have been alot of people just doing an half distance race? Is that what was happening, so now it has to be an IM brand 70.3 or IM?
“Athletes who are SELECTED through the Ironman Lottery must have completed an Ironman or Ironman 70.3 event within one year of the 2011 Ford Ironman World Championship to validate his/her lottery slot.”
Is it me or did the validation before only require completion of any 70.3 (I thought I read this fairly carefully last year before I signed up the Lottery and didn’t recall such language)? Wouldn’t surprise if this was yet a further plot to ensure additional revenue for the Ironman series…
Yes - last year it was any USAT sanctioned 70.3 race - I emailed them last year and they confirmed that - I didn’t hit the lottery so it did not matter to me in the end.
Thanks for posting the change. Its good to know.
If you don’t like the requirements imposed by WTC to get into Kona, then pass it onto the next person.
If you look at it the other way, everyone who QUALIFIED for Kona, had to do at least one WTC event in the first place.
Yeah, i’m really not seeing where the issue is… especially considering that they don’t consider half distance races that aren’t 70.3’s real half ironmans.
The one issue that might exist (depending on where you live) is availability of IM or 70.3 race entries. Currently, lottery result are announced in mid-April (I know - I’ve been an April loser 15 years in a row!). By that point, many (if not all) of the race entries within 10 hours are filled.
But not all 70.3 races have strict time cutoffs while it appears that all M-Dot races do. Rather than have their office haggling with 200 people and dealing with the logistics and rules of every possible 70.3 on the planet and reviewing times, they have a neat simple rule. But, the April lottery announcement date combined with this rule probably gets a bunch of folks signing up for other M-Dot events where they might otherwise consider a non-branded event to ensure they can validate their entry if they are selected. Not a terrible idea from a business/PR standpoint to get potential lottery folks thinking long in advance about the demands of Kona so WTC isn’t dealing with total carnage on the course from people who aren’t even close to ready.
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Umm, simply pointing out a new rule…
The effect of the rule on me personally (and many others) is that if I plan to enter the lottery this year, I simultanouesly have to enter an IM 70.3 to ensure that if I get a Kona slot I also have a 70.3 lined up to validate it. That will force me to sign up for a 70.3 that I otherwise would probably not compete in. IF I get the Kona slot, I will probably never care that I paid an extra few hundred bucks for the 70.3 event (travel costs included), but in the meantime, I have to take that extra money I would have to spend on a 70.3 into account when deciding whether to enter the Kona lottery. Just making an observation that will affect many people…
The effect of the rule on me personally (and many others) is that if I plan to enter the lottery this year, I simultanouesly have to enter an IM 70.3 to ensure that if I get a Kona slot I also have a 70.3 lined up to validate it. That will force me to sign up for a 70.3 that I otherwise would probably not compete in. IF I get the Kona slot, I will probably never care that I paid an extra few hundred bucks for the 70.3 event (travel costs included), but in the meantime, I have to take that extra money I would have to spend on a 70.3 into account when deciding whether to enter the Kona lottery. Just making an observation that will affect many people…
For me it means that Ironman will not be getting $80 this year. The only race nearby is Oceanside and it is sold out, so I could not register if I wanted to.
I received a lottery spot in 2001 and did Muncie as my validating race. I guess that would work next year too… 
All kidding aside, that April 15th notification does mean it is pretty late to guarantee getting a spot in a WTC 70.3.
The effect of the rule on me personally (and many others) is that if I plan to enter the lottery this year, I simultanouesly have to enter an IM 70.3 to ensure that if I get a Kona slot I also have a 70.3 lined up to validate it. That will force me to sign up for a 70.3 that I otherwise would probably not compete in. IF I get the Kona slot, I will probably never care that I paid an extra few hundred bucks for the 70.3 event (travel costs included), but in the meantime, I have to take that extra money I would have to spend on a 70.3 into account when deciding whether to enter the Kona lottery. Just making an observation that will affect many people…
For me it means that Ironman will not be getting $80 this year. The only race nearby is Oceanside and it is sold out, so I could not register if I wanted to.
Yeah the real issue is that this means that many folks may have to fly/hotel to an IM 70.3 to punch their ticket vs. doing a local race. This adds a lot to the cost of getting to Kona.