IRONMAN Announces Performance-Based Qualifying for Kona and 70.3 World Championship

I was thinking maybe more of a US thing

Ohio is in the US at last check. :slight_smile:

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70.3s can’t be compared cross gender. The multiplier doesn’t take into account the other gender so it doesn’t work to compare them. It will be interesting to hear what happened at Placid.

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Placid was 140.6 qualification in the old system. No age grading. Same with Ironman Canada Ottawa in a few weeks

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Ahhhh thats’s right good call

Yes stadler was one of the first adopters of the BluSeventy swinskin. Keep in mind that the first swimskin including in FINA racing had a layer of rubber versus the pure textile swimskins we have today. All the Beijing 2008 records in swimming were set in ā€œnon textileā€. That BluSeventy skin that Stadler used was ā€œslighly floatyā€. Then everyone got one in tri and swimming (in swimming full body). Until it all switched over to full textile only.

Also keep in mind that Stadler won Kona with a descending Aorta Aneursym only found several years later but he raced with that.

On a side note I met Stadler at World Military Games 1995. Team Canada was the room next to team Germany. Team Germany had Stadler, Hellrigel and Rainier Mueller (third ITU worlds 1994). Our team from Canada was a bunch of age groupers. That was 6 weeks before Hellriegel put the fear of the Uberbiker into Mark Allen at Kona 1995 arriving in T2 with a 13 minute lead. Hellriegel won world military games (he lapped me on the 3x3.33km run course haha). It was fun hanging out with the Germans ā€œbeforeā€ they were famous although Thomas had won IM Lanza that spring and was third at Roth and Stadler was already world Duathlon champion 1994 from Hobart Tasmania. I had to explain to my teammates from Canada that these conscripted German ā€œsoldiersā€ doing their military service were straight up pros that we had little chance against (but our Canadian womens’ team did end up with a silver as we also had one current pro athlete and one future Sydney Olympian).

Anyway, back to the thread at had, but yeah, these guys and gals were awesome but I think the top people now are too. Isn’t that one of the attractions to get a rolldown to worlds so you can hang out with top humans from other countries who you would never meet otherwise in our relatively mundane work lives (and my work like is kind of exciting and it still misses some of that buzz from a tri worlds event).

In my last Kona Thomas Hellriegel came to the finish line as I crossed and gave me my lei (I think he was just taking in the vibe greeting finishers) when I finished. Almost 2 decades full circle from when we were soldiers and it was his retirement Kona. These events give people with modest abilities like me to be in the same stadium as the top practitioners in our sport), which is why I think we on this thread care about the topic at hand

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LP is not on the 26 Kona Standard. I heard it rolled down very very very far for Nice 2025 WC

I know in W35-39 it rolled to like the 74th finisher.

To confirm this was Womens 35-39 Kona slot rolling to 74th?

No I was taking about Salem 70.3, not IMLP, sorry for the confusion.

Ya, this surely seems like their calibration methods were off, but not by too much. Old system would have awarded 5-6 slots to this group maybe? When you’re reallocating slots here and there in the single digits, its inevitable, but it’s a little surprising to see so many go to a higher AG like that.

Still, the flip side on the business decision, is I have to assume that AG does have money, and a willingness to travel, so they probably don’t roll too deep and that looks good for Ironman?

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Thanks for clarity. With recent press about a relatively low number of competitors for last women’s only Kona it seemed topical.

Oh no, probably 3-4, I’ve been in 55-59 the past 2 seasons.

Ok, wow. I don’t know how IM can look at that and not see it as a screw-up then. I can see one, maybe two slots landing there just based on the math spreads everything around. But I’d be surprised if they don’t tweak it at the end of the season?

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I think it might be an anomaly with the Oregon race. Other 70.3 races haven’t skewed as heavy towards the 50+ men. My hypothesis (with nothing to back it up) is the crazy fast, current assisted swim caused the older guys to be age graded higher than races with ā€œnormalā€ swims. Oregon seemed to also have a higher number of older women at the top of the age graded results when compared to other races too.

The only thing that makes Oregon different from other races so far is the swim.

Or I’m just full of shit.

Maybe it’s because M55 have been last wave to start in Kona and 70.3 Worlds, hence having hotter conditions and slower times - makes their Age Grade slightly lower and hence slightly easier to qualify?

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Then why aren’t the M50+ more top heavy at the other 70.3 races using the same system?

The swim explanation is certainly plausible. It’s also possible that Oregon could just be a quirky result. I’m in the 50-54 AG and in road races there’s been times I’ve won my AG but would have finished 3rd or 4th in the 55-59. Sometimes a bunch of fast guys happen to be clustered in a particular age range.

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Just to add in from what I’m seeing on FB.

The men rolled to 135 and the women to 74. Seems a little surprising, but I can guess a few reasons.

What’s more interesting is looking at the graded chart, assuming those roll down numbers I read above are correct, twenty M40-44 at the chance at a slot, 26 M50-54 and also 26 55-59 had a chance at a slot. Meanwhile 11 M45-49 had a chance at a slot (based on the rolldown)

Maybe the way I’m wording it is quirky because they didn’t all get slots, but I’m not sure what to make of the combination of the age adjusted score and the roll down.

When I look at the age grading, the first 60 ā€œrankedā€ athletes only have one racer under the age of 30. And that’s the first place in 25-29, ā€œrankedā€ 56.

Now I realize this athlete and the others winners from younger AGs would have had first dibs so to speak on the slots, but doesn’t it reveal a flaw in your performance adjusted sorting system that virtually none of the younger faster racers make the top 60?

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I had some athletes do Salem 70.3 the swim current and flat bike do help older men and women a lot compared to other course like Victoria 70.3 and Oceanside .

The swim e.g a 42 min swimmer did 22:00 at Salem. No stress vs a 28 swimmer doing 18 no stress.

That’s 10 min gained to the front swimmer without getting fatigued vs a proper swim.

Second the bike is super fast with little effort on the climbs required ( no over reaching )

E.g a few clients that do 3:00-3:20 in Victoria do 2:40- 3:00 and run much better do to much fresher systems and no big spikes and climbs that lead to build on tense before the run.

So a Victoria 70.3 finisher of
S 40, B 3:20 R 2:20

Goes in Salem
S22 , B 3:00 , R 2:00

6:20 vs a 5:22

Where a young fast guy goes Victoria
4:20
Salem 3:59 .

Advantage middle packer no matter the age but it is age handicapped now .

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