Ironman athletes "the numbers"

Triathlon Forum
1

Many posts discussing about races that disapear, etc… I make a “market research”, to see if my subjective is opinion is based in something real. I have checked using the AWA rankings the numbers:

I propose to wait until the end of the year, and try to make the count of how many finishers in total in 2023 for ironman.

The overall list is this one, the number of Ironman and 70.3 finishers, and the most crowded AG.

160477 in 2022 (M40-44 21466),
179090 in 2019 (M40-44 25148),
162911 in 2018 (M40-44 23741),
171894 in 2017 (M40-44 24761),
165579 in 2016 (M40-44 24609),
153879 in 2015 (M40-44 23730),
125445 in 2014 (M40-44 21081).

==> we could see that the number is in a plateau. 2023 is a big year, it could mantain the 160k of athletes, to reach back the 170k -ish or … to fall down. We note that this number includes both Ironman And 70.3, that some athletes have race more than 1 race.
==> the biggest AG is M40-44. No surprise.

70.3:
123061 in 2022,
133120 in 2019,
118358 in 2018,
111532 in 2017,
106124 in 2016,
98793 in 2015,
82109 in 2014

==> the biggest point in 2019, 2023 is a important year, since we see that there are more 70.3 races (instead of full distance)
==> i was not able to see the distribution by AG.

IM:
55479 in 2022 (M40-44 8242),
58167 in 2019 (M40-44 9128),
59033 in 2018(M40-44 9435),
57741 in 2017 (M40-44 9421),
58252 in 2016 (M40-44 9751),
59013 in 2015 (M40-44 10231)
59023 in 2014 (M40-44 10834)

==> it is clear, in my opinion, that the number of finishers is falling down, already in 2022.
==> the distribution is changing, even if M40-44 is the biggest, the total number of participant of this AG is decreasing, from 18% of the total to 15% of the total

Up to now, this 2023 we have 90270 triathletes in the AWA ranking, which includes both full and 70.3. Biggest AG M40-44 (11571). No ranking for separate 70.3 and Ironman distances.

2

On the Pro Tri News podcast Talbot Cox mentioned he spoke with Messick at Oceanside and post Covid, 79.3 numbers rebounded but IM numbers have not recovered to their 2019 levels.

3

On the Pro Tri News podcast Talbot Cox mentioned he spoke with Messick at Oceanside and post Covid, 79.3 numbers rebounded but IM numbers have not recovered to their 2019 levels.

This is the number of athletes, if we make the job of see race by race finishers, and make the count, we could see a higher decrease. As many athletes do more than one race.

My surprise doing the numbers is that I thought that the bigger AG last year would be the 45-49, but not.

4

For all of the talk about growing the sport, this actually has me feeling pretty good. The sport hasn’t gotten back to 2019 levels but it’s higher than the mid-2010s.

5

am i oversimplifying this? we’re all saying full IM distance is “dying”, yet from 2019 to 2022 the total went from 58k to 55k, a decrease of around 5%, in the first “normal” year post-pandemic? does that qualify as “death” in business?

6

am i oversimplifying this? we’re all saying full IM distance is “dying”, yet from 2019 to 2022 the total went from 58k to 55k, a decrease of around 5%, in the first “normal” year post-pandemic? does that qualify as “death” in business?

you are right, but…

  • 2023 seems to be worse than 2022.
  • some races are going to be discontinued for 2024
  • some races with more than 2000 athletes before 2019 are now below the 1000 athletes threshold
7

am i oversimplifying this? we’re all saying full IM distance is “dying”, yet from 2019 to 2022 the total went from 58k to 55k, a decrease of around 5%, in the first “normal” year post-pandemic? does that qualify as “death” in business?

The outlier with 2022 is the number of deferrals moved from 2020 and 2021. How many new, 2022 only, registrations were there.

IM Tremblant is an example of this.
2019 - 2376 finishers. (43% Canadian)

2020 cancelled. Money refunded, no deferrals.
2021 cancelled.
2022 new registrations only since no previous deferrals.

2022 - 1066 finishers (61% Canadian)

Argument can be said that the International numbers were down because of border uncertainty. But if country % remained similar there would have been 1525 starters. The local Canadian numbers also went down from 1168 in 2019 to 653 in 2022.

8

am i oversimplifying this? we’re all saying full IM distance is “dying”, yet from 2019 to 2022 the total went from 58k to 55k, a decrease of around 5%, in the first “normal” year post-pandemic? does that qualify as “death” in business?

you are right, but…

  • 2023 seems to be worse than 2022.
  • some races are going to be discontinued for 2024
  • some races with more than 2000 athletes before 2019 are now below the 1000 athletes threshold

I think people are still trying to catch up on vacations and traveling? I did some international traveling recently and oh boy, huge airplanes were 100% packed, airports were so crowded and ticket prices were extremely high due to demand, high gas price, increased salaries and airline companies trying to recoup lost revenue from pandemic(?). Several families I know went on cruises, visit Vegas, vacations and dropped some big bucks too. Idk, I’m just throwing ideas.

9

am i oversimplifying this? we’re all saying full IM distance is “dying”, yet from 2019 to 2022 the total went from 58k to 55k, a decrease of around 5%, in the first “normal” year post-pandemic? does that qualify as “death” in business?

you are right, but…

  • 2023 seems to be worse than 2022.
  • some races are going to be discontinued for 2024
  • some races with more than 2000 athletes before 2019 are now below the 1000 athletes threshold

I think people are still trying to catch up on vacations and traveling? I did some international traveling recently and oh boy, huge airplanes were 100% packed, airports were so crowded and ticket prices were extremely high due to demand, high gas price, increased salaries and airline companies trying to recoup lost revenue from pandemic(?). Several families I know went on cruises, visit Vegas, vacations and dropped some big bucks too. Idk, I’m just throwing ideas.

definitely: traveling in 2023 is much more expensive than in 2019. And the increase in Ironman cost is not only the registration, in fact the REAL problem happened in Kona 2022 was the accomodation.

10

I appreciate the data pull and analysis. That being said I think you are missing a large chunk of athletes that DNF.

Possible scenario that would make your analysis invalid. I’m not saying this is the case but it COULD be that the DNF rate was lower in the years your posted numbers are higher and higher in the other years. This would invalidate any trend you are drawing.

It’s likely the DNF rate was about equal but we don’t know from these numbers alone. I could see a scenario where recent years attracted more “casual” triathletes which could result in more paying registrations but lower numbers in the AWA rankings.

Again just a possibility but we need to keep in mind these numbers are rough rough estimates.

11

I appreciate the data pull and analysis. That being said I think you are missing a large chunk of athletes that DNF.

Possible scenario that would make your analysis invalid. I’m not saying this is the case but it COULD be that the DNF rate was lower in the years your posted numbers are higher and higher in the other years. This would invalidate any trend you are drawing.

It’s likely the DNF rate was about equal but we don’t know from these numbers alone. I could see a scenario where recent years attracted more “casual” triathletes which could result in more paying registrations but lower numbers in the AWA rankings.

Again just a possibility but we need to keep in mind these numbers are rough rough estimates.

You are right,
but it is also true that in the list of athletes we are not able to see “easily” the “average of race number per athlete”, which I assume is not much bigger than 1 for Ironman, but it should be higher in 70.3.

but you have to take into consideration the reason for this review:
we have seen that in many recent races there are much less participation. It is a feeling, but it is only subjective or it is sustained by numbers?
I have checked several races (Lanzarote, Barcelona, Vitoria all from Spain (Mallorca has been discontinued), also Nice, Frankfurt… and others in Europe), in all the number of athletes has been reduced (In the result list we can see both finishers and not finishers).

So, after see this in several races, we could understand that 1) the number of races has been increased, so the athletes can select another races, 2) ironman athletes are moving to 70.3 races.

But if you see the “big numbers” (and again, we only see athletes, and one athlete may participate in several races)… the overall number has started to decrease in 2022 already.

I am sure that 2023 will be even worse, and this is the reason for the change in the company

12

It would be interesting to see the AG by AG breakdown over the years. It would be very troubling to see a ‘baby boom’ moving through the AG’s. A general trend of bigger crowds in the 40-60 groups would be fine, but it’s also possible that the 1970’s/1980’s born group is the highest participating demographic. That would be bad news.

13

Many posts discussing about races that disapear, etc… I make a “market research”, to see if my subjective is opinion is based in something real. I have checked using the AWA rankings the numbers:

I propose to wait until the end of the year, and try to make the count of how many finishers in total in 2023 for ironman.

The overall list is this one, the number of Ironman and 70.3 finishers, and the most crowded AG.

160477 in 2022 (M40-44 21466),
179090 in 2019 (M40-44 25148),
162911 in 2018 (M40-44 23741),
171894 in 2017 (M40-44 24761),
165579 in 2016 (M40-44 24609),
153879 in 2015 (M40-44 23730),
125445 in 2014 (M40-44 21081).

==> we could see that the number is in a plateau. 2023 is a big year, it could mantain the 160k of athletes, to reach back the 170k -ish or … to fall down. We note that this number includes both Ironman And 70.3, that some athletes have race more than 1 race.
==> the biggest AG is M40-44. No surprise.

70.3:
123061 in 2022,
133120 in 2019,
118358 in 2018,
111532 in 2017,
106124 in 2016,
98793 in 2015,
82109 in 2014

==> the biggest point in 2019, 2023 is a important year, since we see that there are more 70.3 races (instead of full distance)
==> i was not able to see the distribution by AG.

IM:
55479 in 2022 (M40-44 8242),
58167 in 2019 (M40-44 9128),
59033 in 2018(M40-44 9435),
57741 in 2017 (M40-44 9421),
58252 in 2016 (M40-44 9751),
59013 in 2015 (M40-44 10231)
59023 in 2014 (M40-44 10834)

==> it is clear, in my opinion, that the number of finishers is falling down, already in 2022.
==> the distribution is changing, even if M40-44 is the biggest, the total number of participant of this AG is decreasing, from 18% of the total to 15% of the total

Up to now, this 2023 we have 90270 triathletes in the AWA ranking, which includes both full and 70.3. Biggest AG M40-44 (11571). No ranking for separate 70.3 and Ironman distances.

This is interesting data, thanks for putting it together. The numbers in 2014 and 2015 are lower than I realized. Even if we assume 2023’s final numbers will be well down from 2022, they will still likely be higher than 2014/15. In that sense, long-course racing does not look nearly as unhealthy as one might think if the only source of information was ST threads/ posts.

It’s also worth noting that high inflation is almost certainly acting as a headwind today in a way that it wasn’t pre-COVID, particularly in the Eurozone where inflation, though falling, has stubbornly remained higher than in the US.

14

Thanks for putting together.

My biggest concern though is an apparent decrease in the number of non-IM brand events, and a degradation of the ones that are left (fewer distance options, replacing point to point courses with repeated laps, and so forth).

15

Thanks for putting together.

My biggest concern though is an apparent decrease in the number of non-IM brand events, and a degradation of the ones that are left (fewer distance options, replacing point to point courses with repeated laps, and so forth).

I have same concern, less races in general

16

Very interesting, and thanks for developing the report.

17

I also look at the numbers and (heretically) see them telling the story of a strategy, well-executed.

18

I’ve only done one local Olympic race, a 70.3, and observed an Xterra race due to injury. None of these events struck me as overly saturated with 50+ year olds. In fact I would rank the younger crowd, sub 35 or so, as a strong contingent, with plenty of 20 somethings in there. I did notice at the 70.3 that international presence was very high. Lots of people from South America and Canada, but none that I spoke with or were around were particularly “old” either. The local event I did had quite a few college aged kids competing with their tri clubs. Just a personal anecdote, but in my opinion I don’t think it’s time to freak out yet over triathlon participation.