Every… Dam… Time…
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87.1% of respondents
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Yes. Absolutely. I’m not upset about it, but I would not have signed up for IM AZ if I knew it was a combined WC next year. My sign-up was 100% based on considering my odds of a Kona slot since I’ll be coming off IMWC Nice already this year.
Yes, on a case by case basis some folks on the micro level would opt of of certain races. But what should also be noted is there are plenty to fill your spots, so as far as Ironman is concerned, nothing has changed at the macro level…
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At a macro level if they don’t sell out, then it leads to less entries. If I was chasing a slot, I’d go find a other race if sold out. I don’t think IMAZ sells out the last couple years does it?
If they are selling out then this line of increasing women’s participation means they want less men?
I have no idea if it sells out or other Ironmans anymore. But as far as slot chasing, well there is an unlimited number of folks doing that. Can guarantee that all slots will be given away, and they wont roll like they did the past couple years, so harder to get and more valuable…
Just so we are full circle, what would be the solution that doesn’t lead to mass exodus that you predict?
Yesterday i promised myself i was done with this thread…
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Lol, it’s like a scab.
Tread lightly with your biggest loyal customer groups.
Don’t presume you can change the world with a sales and marketing strategy, but the wrong strategy if the course is not altered can destroy your business over time.
Find ways to encourage potential growth segments in a way that doesn’t limit the resources you can direct into proven profitable strategies.
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My precis (no new stuff) of the linked Tri247 article (based on and quoting widely from their De Rue interview). My edits/precis:
IM Press Release: “ ‘nearly’ 3,000 . . will be between 2,500 and 3,000. And . . . for 2026, . . . in the middle [2750].
"[Allocation of] places will be mostly proportionate. . . . with dispensation for extra spots where beneficial.
"Women [answering survey] were split exactly 50/50 on whether or not it should be proportionate versus equal. Whereas men were overwhelmingly in favour of proportionate. [Proportionate on 80/20 would mean 2200 men and 550 women.]
"other important input [to the decision/detail] is the question of how we want to think about equity or equality in the sport. 20% of starters at Ironman races around the world are women, 80% are men. If you make it equal slots, the [chance] of earning a slot as a woman is about 15%, versus if you’re a man it’s less than 4%.
" if we’re getting to a point where at rolldowns, we’re offering it to anyone, that’s not a World (age-group) Championship at that point.
"we really want to grow the sport and we see growing women participation in the sport as a big part of that. But . . .
"[many] factors [including] the “voice of our athletes” were important considerations as we [decided] that mostly proportionate approach. . . . .we can always evolve it in the future.”
Still reckon the outcome will be a “mostly proportionate” 75/25% (2062/688 on start list). I guess clever people can extrapolate the early allocations of the first IMs which offer a 2026 Q. Tallinn, Thun and Wisconsin are the early ones.
Equal numbers of women competing in Ironman events worldwide is a pipe dream. If it was going to happen it would have years ago but it isn’t the done thing to admit it, let alone accept it.
How Ironman splits the qualifying spots is a different story.
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You used to be able to say the same thing about running a few decades ago, but here we are. I’d argue that the burden doesn’t solely fall on Ironman’s shoulders to make it happen, and there’s a whole generational change that needs to happen first, but I wouldn’t say never.
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And it starts at the grass roots, pool sprint distance, not Ironman.
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Swimmers (USA swimming) have slightly more females than males, so that’s not an impediment. Marathon running it’s the reverse, but both are within 5% of each other. USA cycling is 80% male and 20% female. You don’t think cycling companies and motorcycle companies would like to change that and it’s just structural sexism? Nonsense.
And people think this triathlon disparity has something to do with time to train, taking care of the kids etc. No!
Women are naturally more risk averse, less interested in certain objects (cars, guns, bikes, tools, etc) then men. The bike is the impediment and it’s not a negative, is just women tend not to be as interested in cycling on average. Especially bike racing. My suggestion is again, natural biological, evolutionary differences in both risk aversion and how men and women approach tools/toys.
It’s a silly thing to go down that path and articulate it that way though. No one really knows, understands, or has a lot of choice in what they are drawn to and repulsed by. And yes, we can condition people to want to do things they otherwise don’t choose to do given equal opportunity of choice. But it’s a costly endeavor not just in terms of what you spend to get it, but what is given up in the getting.
I have been saying for years that it isn’t Ironman’s responsibility to develop the sport. That falls on World Triathlon and all the associated national governing bodies.As Bryancd mentioned,it is the grass roots that need to be the focus and not the expensive, high end of the sport.
The thing is, Ironman has tried to promote women’s triathlon specifically for years and they were not supported by the females in the sport. WTC bought the Danskin Tri Series,a series that had 20,000 women racing one year in the USA. It was rebranded as the Iron Girl Series and it failed due to lack of numbers. They tried to run the Iron Girls 5k as part of Ironman week in the UK one year but the outrage from certain groups saying that Ironman was demeaning women by calling the women’s 5k run “Girls” while the main event was IronMAN…Ironman had to apologise and that was the end of the womens 5k.
The idea that adding more women’s spots to Kona will magically increase the number of women in Ironman is silly considering they are doing that exact thing in the 70.3 Worlds and the gender split is still huge.
Maybe women just have different interests. Maybe women have better things to spend their time and money on. Maybe they have different priorities which is why you see the gender gap close when you get to Oly’s and Sprints.
I mentioned in a podcast last week that you can see lifestyle similarities in Golf where men are happy to spend hours on the Driving Range and even more time on the Golf Course pretending that they are in the PGA while women just aren’t as interested. I believe the gender split in recreational Golf is around 80/20 and I also believe that is for the similar reasons I gave to the split in Triathlon.
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Its not (necessarily) that governing bodies are sexist and preventing women from joining - I’d argue that it mostly comes down to culture. If your sport is disproportionately one gender, then the other gender is always going to have hurdles (whether actual or perceived) to making up a greater share of participants. Some of this comes down to that we get into the sport because our friends are in the sport and most of us have more friends of the same gender and so we join sports that sometimes fall more into one gender category than the other just because of recruitment patterns. One reason triathlon has more men is because the category of “friends of people who do triathlon” is itself disproportionally male.
Other sports have the opposite problem - for instance, synchronized swimming has a much higher barrier attracting men than triathlon does women. Not because making movement patterns in the water is inherently a feminine trait, but because the sport is almost exclusively female and its a hard ask to be the first person who is different. Cheerleading seems to have done well to overcome this, and the sport is better because of it (men can throw women higher into the air than women can).
That is a good and valid point – but it fails to address the reality of why a sport with few females and female friends doing it (running, swimming) grew to be equal or greater share of females over a time period when cycling hasn’t seen the same demographic evolution. They all started predominantly male.
Regarding synchronized swimming, haven’t given it any thought. No idea. My first guess was the observation that while men tend to be more interested in stuff, women are more interested in relationships. Synchronized swimming tends to support that, but I assume it’s initially much more basic than that. While I don’t know about the origins of synchronized swimming, I have seen my fair share of 1940s and 50s musicals that have random scenes of women doing synchronized routines in the pool. I’ve always been inclined to think it’s just Hollywood scheming how they can get more young attractive women to audition and try out the casting couch in a bathing suit…And the sport grew from there?
Again, I’m sure we can condition women to want to bike, especially if we build up friend groups. But I know from immediate experience many women who say no thanks to any idea of a bike race beyond a leisurely ride. I guess the best place to start if we want female triathletes is the local spin class.