first the WC in St. George in May 2022,then two-day WC in Kona in October 2022,then men-only Nice in September 2023,and finally women-only in October 2023,what do you think worked well and what didn’t? And the next step question: what, in your opinion, contributes the most to the successful WC event (aka. worked well)?
Would your priority be that:
a) WC must be in Kona (or Hawaii in general, if it were an option)
b) WC must be in the same time & location for men & women (doesn’t mean it must be the same day),
c) WC must allow men & women to race separately,
d) WC must have the potentially best-in-world participants,
e) WC must provide equal racing chances to all athletes (at least on a rotating basis)?
What would be your order of preference / priority?
Edit:
My own preference would be: b) same time & place > d) best-in-world athletes > a) Kona > e) equal chances > e) genders separately
I think a read somewhere that the contract in Nice is 4 years - so, unless something radical happens we have at least 3 more years of the split and rotating WC’s between Nice and Kona.
I was not at either, of the recent WC’s but viewed from afar, they both seemed impressive.
Kona is tricky for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost being, the Municipality, from my understanding has put their foot down and said - you only get one day! With that - you can’t have a totally separate, stand alone, women’s race - which I really think the women should have. I know IM is a private business enterprise, but at the World Athletics Championships or the Olympic Games, you don’t have the women and the men sharing the Race Course of the Marathon on the same day at the same time! Nor does this happen in Cycling at the UCI World Championships . . etc . . So if you have both in Kona, that’s always going to be toe compromise and, talking to some insiders in Operations and Logistics, the optimal max number in Kona is about 2000 competitors.
So in an equal world that’s means a 1000 women and 1000 men - que the severe grumbling from the AG men on how hard making it to Kona would be in man AG’s!
e) WC must provide equal chances to all athletes (at least on a rotating basis)?
What does “equal chances” mean? Equal chances to qualify? To race in a particular location?
I meant equal chances to race, but I struggled to formulate the paradigm. E.g. Lionel would struggle in Nice, because it’s very technical. Many people struggle in Kona heat, but excel somewhere else. Lightweight athletes struggle in strong wind flat conditions, but excel with lots of climbing. Equal chances would mean either finding an average course or rotating the WC.
Kona is tricky for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost being, the Municipality, . . . put their foot down and said - you only get one day! With that - you can’t have a totally separate, stand alone, women’s race - which I really think the women should have.We just have: “a totally separate, stand alone, women’s race”: Kona gave us one day. . . . the optimal max number in Kona is about 2000 competitors.
So in an equal world that’s means a 1000 women and 1000 men - cue the severe grumbling from the AG men on how hard making it to Kona would be in man AGs!Think you mean harder than it used to be with 1500 men’s slots. But Ironman realised that it was unfair to women to restrict the numbers who could start the IMWC so they upped those numbers to almost 2200. This priority also offered commercial benefit.
Is there lots of " severe grumbling from the AG men" that there are only 2300 start slots for Kona next year and how easy it will be to get a start?
Is there lots of " severe grumbling from the AG men" that there are only 2300 start slots for Kona next year and how easy it will be to get a start?
Quite the opposite. I estimated in some other thread, and it’ll be roughly twice as hard to qualify to Kona '24 compared to pre-Covid. This is because roughly 1200 men carried-over their slots from before January '23.
IMFL would be a great championship spot. Could easily move the date back into October and weather would still be nice, ocean swim, flat bike, plenty of hotels. Nice is such a crap option for anyone with some size to them and there’s essentially only a handful of places in the continental US that one could recreate that climb. Bike course needs to be more fair for a WC IMO, not one heavily slanted towards the small climbers.
Sam won Nice and while he’s not big, he’s around 74-75kg. Same for Dietlev - he’s one of the heaviest because of his height, but was one of the fastest on that day. Nice bike course accumulates 2500m of altitude gain, but only a few sections really penalise added weight.
Men and women definitely deserve to have their own days.
From a personal point of view I have no interest in racing at Kona. I don’t enjoy heat, it’s far too expensive, and I wasn’t one of those people that grew up watching Kona so there’s little sentimental interest for me. That said I completely understand why some want to race it.
So the current solution with men and women alternating between Kona and another destination seems like a reasonable solution to me. I’d rather that other destination moved around the world to make it easier for everyone to get a chance to race without such a big financial cost. Even better if you can get some variety in courses too (i.e. flat fast bike course one year then technical climbing course the year after).
as a perspective first time WC qualifier having been in the sport for 4 years now I would order them this way
(a) WC must be in Kona. I am not interested in spending big bucks on an ironman WC elsewhere in the world. Especially Nice that I could race a few months earlier for half the price.
(c) WC must allow men & women to race separately. I was on the fence before the split on this one but it was clear to me after watching the women’s race this past weekend Women deserve their own day.
all other concerns to me are secondary and I don’t care how they fall out.
b) WC must be in the same time & location for men & women (doesn’t mean it must be the same day),
d) WC must have the potentially best-in-world participants,
e) WC must provide equal racing chances to all athletes (at least on a rotating basis)?
If Ironman insist that women must have their own day (I’m not against this) then another option which doesn’t seem to be mentioned much is to just have a 2 year cycle in Kona - ladies one year and guys the next.
I love the Nice course and racing there looks amazing, but roll downs appear to be showing that it remains markedly less popular. It’s a commonly held belief that Ironman created the local interface problem in Kona by pumping up the number of qualifiers to breaking point. If it is not about selling race entries and is ***truly ***about quality racing, women racing on their own day, and making the race work in Kona, then they could just drop the alternate venue entirely.
(a) WC must be in Kona. I am not interested in spending big bucks on an ironman WC elsewhere in the world. Especially Nice that I could race a few months earlier for half the price.
But nobody is forcing you to race in Nice (or an alternative WC. If there is Kona every other year it gives people like you the option to do Kona like you want. It also gives those of us that don’t want to race Kona an option. It seems fair for both sides.
Kona is amazing but they should move the event to a place that will allow two days of racing in a world class venue with fully closed roads. If it’s in a rotating basis that’s not adding a second race in the same location in the same year many locations could accommodate it (ie no open registration race there two months earlier).
Just make kona a pro and AWA qualifier only race with a pre-order open that sells out in minutes of opening.
No one cares about the WC title of kona. It’s racing kona. It used to be open to anyone to signup. Let the AWA golds signup first. Then the silvers, etc etc. Call it the AWA World Championship, make tons of money, encourage IM customers to race multiple races to have the opportunity to race kona, and still have 2 days of WC racing at a stellar location that’s on contract 2 years in a row or something.
Only worry is if no one cares about the WC title, but as long as Ironman delivers on the venue and race it will get traction.
Well, if you asked me that question few week ago where i saw a rolldown that ran out of Women for Nice, i will have told you that it was only a matter of time for the before the race will return to it’s previous format.
But after watching the ‘Opening ceremony’; current senior management have clearly made their bed with the split race format… it will take something special for them to change their mind. (ie: what happen if Nice 2024 only has 1500 registrants, setting up 2 races is not cheap)
For sure the ‘TV show’ is better with 2 genders… I won’t catch me watching 9hrs of coverage for 2 passes…
Not sure if from the athlete / spectator point of view if things were different?
If Ironman insist that women must have their own day (I’m not against this) then another option which doesn’t seem to be mentioned much is to just have a 2 year cycle in Kona - ladies one year and guys the next.
I love the Nice course and racing there looks amazing, but roll downs appear to be showing that it remains markedly less popular. It’s a commonly held belief that Ironman created the local interface problem in Kona by pumping up the number of qualifiers to breaking point. If it is not about selling race entries and is ***truly ***about quality racing, women racing on their own day, and making the race work in Kona, then they could just drop the alternate venue entirely.
The option you suggest is there. Men can ignore Nice on odd years and Women can ignore Nice in even years. This gets you to what you want but it looks like men did go to Nice this year and I suspect many women will go to Nice next year so the rest of the world who does not want to go to Nice can just pretend that it does not exist !!!
No one cares about the WC title of kona. It’s racing kona.
I would actually say it’s the full package that makes Kona special. It’s the venue, it’s the WC, it’s the 100% industry buying in (Kona week peacocking would be a bore without the full package). Take away parts of that and suddenly imo Kona would just be “meh” after everyone got their Kona fix who is a mere mortal who can’t KQ.
So yeah Kona could survive imo for a few years, and then you would likely see 1400 or so registrants, I certainly dont think it would sell out for the next 10 years if the WC went away (which it wouldn’t, at worse it’ll be a 3-4 year rotation at worse)
The only reason imo that other venues are struggling w roll downs is because Kona is always an 1 year wait option. If IM said “sorry Kona is gone forever†we’d all find the new venues would sell out much easier. IM would never do that nor no need to. But every time we hear about roll down issues it’s because Kona is an option “next yearâ€
I may be in the minority but I’d disagree. You can spread the slots over 2 years of racing (pick a limited number of races if necessary) and “give the cachet back to a KQ”.
The point of this proposal isn’t that it’s perfect; only to show that a rotating second venue isn’t necessary to fulfil Ironman’s “constraints” which are somewhat consequential and somewhat self imposed.
I’m not denying you might be right about the WC claim, and maybe it would sell out without the title, but I think this is overstated.
I’m not a great sample size, but there is zero chance I’d have spent the money I did if it wasn’t the WC and the best in the world (or at least a lot of them) were going to be there.
I think Kona would completely lose it’s mystique as an open race. Half the fun is walking around town the week before feeling the imposter syndrome while you look at all the crazy fit people rolling in.
Plus all the vendor pomp and circumstance that comes with a WC would melt away too. Sure it’s not what it was, but it’s also a lot more than you see at a normal IM event. Even more than at the StG WC, which I honestly loved.
As a pure race, yeah the swim is nice but biking on a straight windy highway and running through a road that feels like your shoes are melting on isn’t the most welcoming or scenic experience. Honestly not sure it would survive for the next generation of triathletes that don’t have the Kona nostalgia that we do.
I rather enjoyed having the entire day given to the women. That said, I was entirely bummed more about not being there for the underwear run as it would likely have been the best version to date…
That said, the women/men on the same day would be great if a couple both qualified for the WC and then don’t have to buy tickets or choose who goes if $ is a concern and they have enough for 1 trip. That’s a let down/problem for some in more ways than one. It also can mean lack of a support crew due to vacation time if in 2 locations. Someone goes or doesn’t.
The same day race for M / W would return the exclusivity of the race and value of the Kona slot IF they capped it to a reasonable level and not some 4,000 people or whatever. My first Kona was about 1,000–TOTAL. It would be nice and cut down on drafting if it returned to that level. Continental Championships would fill in the gaps for those wanting a title.
Finally, maybe a “Ironman Canada” would qualify you for the “Continental” Championships where they actually had all the Kona slots. With all the US races, those would qualify you for the N.A. Championships and THAT is where you would get the slots to Kona. It would truly be a WC race and drafting would be much less also (in Kona, due to less spots but higher quality racers).
