What if Kona qualifying was run the same way the Boston Marathon qualifies its racers? For instance, for the M18-24 age group, you’d have to break 9:45 (or some other time).
Would that work? I think it would be hard to keep the field small at 2000 or so, unles the qualifying times were really low.
The way it’s set up now, qualifying for Kona seems harder than Boston, since you have to win your age group. Maybe its better that way.
It has to be harder, kona is a hell of a lot smaller race than boston and can’t really get much bigger even if they move it
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I don’t think you have thought your math through, particularly if you jeep the race capped at 2,000 or less.
Just imagine by the suggested system, where everyone one be qualifying, and where nobody would be qualifying.
What if Kona qualifying was run the same way the Boston Marathon qualifies its racers? For instance, for the M18-24 age group, you’d have to break 9:45 (or some other time).
Would that work? I think it would be hard to keep the field small at 2000 or so, unles the qualifying times were really low.
The way it’s set up now, qualifying for Kona seems harder than Boston, since you have to win your age group. Maybe its better that way.
i agree with you… qualifying for kona is a LOT harder than for boston… and a LOT more prestigious also…it s a world championship
and boston…well, i m not sure what it is exactly because i m not a runner but the qualifying time arent very hard to reach if you are a committed runner…
Sure you have to go pretty quick to qualify but you don't need to win your age group.Try later season races where the spots roll down more and keep away from flat ,draft-fests where the times are really quick.In my age(40-44)group at IMC it rolled to 10:22 in the pro men also 10:22 and in the pro women it rolled to a shockingly slow 14:12.One thing though Kona is supposed to the World Championships of Ironman so you would think that you should be fast to earn your spot.
hard to compare the 2, but the standard would have to be pretty fast to keep the field small enough.
Definately under 10 for men under 40, probably closer to 9:45 as you suggest.
Your proposal would eliminate 70.3’s as qualifiers I presume?
The problem would be that WTC would never know (until the last qualifier was run) exactly how many people they’d end up with in Hawaii. In Boston, with 20,000+ runners, they can be off by a few hundred and it doesn’t really affect race logistics all that much. At IMH, suppose a qualifier or two has bad weather and times are unusually slow. They could end up being off by a couple of hundred participants fr IMHI and they’ve lost 10% of the field.
Qualifying for Kona is vastly harder than qualifying for Boston, though the extent of the difference varies depending on age and gender. The reason is not whether you use a ranking system (as Kona does) or an absolute time standard (as Boston does). Rather, it depends on the actual time standard. Qualifying for Boston could be tougher than Kona, if they dramatically lowered the time standards.
My guess, the biggest effects of going to a time standard for Kona (whatever it might be), would be: (1) there would be a much greater premium on trying to get into the fastest courses, (2) there would be a lot more drafting – since people would not be competing against each other for Kona slots, they’d have more incentive to cooperate and (3) the unpredictable size of Kona would be a problem in some years (it’s not such a big issue at Boston because the city has a zillion hotel rooms and the course can handle more people).
You could also do it the way The Western States 100 has started qualifying people now through the Montrail Ultra cup. Top 3 men and women from each race qualify and do not have to go in the lottery. They don’t roll down spots though.
You guys still aren’t getting this. If you leave the field size capped close to where it it now, it really shouldn’t affect anything, only the top 4% would still be going. If anything, it might mean fewer qualifying, if people previously qualified by roll downs in the past were slower than the “new” cutoff time".
The really big problem is the differences in courses. If it were the same time standards for each age group at all courses, then everyone would be flocking to IMFl. Kiss IMLP and IMoo goodbye. Very few people would be qualifying at those races.
Also, I would be very curious as to how one would work the age group and gender standards. Given the 2:1 M:F ratio in most IMs, and the preponderance of participants in their 30s’, you would still have to really crank down on the qualifying times for those middle groups to end up with a representative field in Kona. Unless, of course, your goal isn’t to end up with a representative field in Kona.
Lastly, Boston has a signup cutoff date and a participant limit. They know how many to plan for. Modifying Kona would use the same setup, say register by September 1, with a cap. It wouldn’t be a logistics problem, any more than the current system.
Maybe Kona can do like Boston and demean those who qualify by allow nonqualifiers to make up about 15% of the field by going and knocking on doors and begging for money.
Not much different than paying for the lottery and even more two double your chances.
I guess that would mean most everyone hoping to qualify would be racing IMFL.
Haim
I knew some DB would say something like that.
The way it’s set up now, qualifying for Kona seems harder than Boston, since you have to win your age group.
Not necessarily. Some of the age groups, based on their size can go quite deep - 10+ spots. And then not EVERYONE takes their spot all the time. So you could finish, say 15th in your AG and get a roll-down slot. I realize this is happening less and less these days as the spots get spread around even more.
Indeed, in the AG with small numbers of entries, they only have one spot and that’s for the winner.