My point above is that these are actually linked - it does one gender’s sport a disservice if KQ becomes completionist for one gender while the other is only taking the top 2% of finishers. At that point, there is no pinnacle of the sport for that gender, the challenge is really only getting to the start line and it in some sense devalues that gender’s accomplishment.
I think of it in the same way that for whatever historical reason women have a heptathlon while men get a decathlon, or get unequal prize money for the same events, or whatever other historical hurdle still exists that still doesn’t make women’s sport as seriously.
If the KQ is going to be the pinnacle of amateur accomplishment, then it needs to have some value. And you don’t get that unless there’s some degree of scarcity. Maybe that value is at 1000 women per year, and will grow with the sport, but we have to be ok if its only 750.
(Note that the same thing would happen if for whatever reason you could let in 10,000 men on the pier - KQ would suddenly lose its accomplishment. We saw this with Nice as well to some degree - slots weren’t as desired or scarce, and so the NQ is not the same as the KQ).
Looking at the scarcity issue from another angle, if we take the 1600 women at Kona to the number of finishers about 18% of all female finishers raced Kona.
If we apply that level of “scarcity” to the men, that means we should have 7100+ male racers in Kona. What would we be saying about how easy it is to get a slot in that case?
If we take the 2500 men that raced Nice, which had some roll downs still, that went quite deep as the year went on, relative to the 40k finishers, that’s 6.2% of the field that raced in Nice. It’s not unreasonable to say we have a target for 5% of our finishers to race the World Champs.
Incidentally, that would be 450 women and 2000 men. That’s an approach that preserves value, but clearly ruffles feathers. If slots were 50% less scarce for women, you’d see 650 women to 2000 men. A ratio that I agree can be easily critiqued from one perspective, but the reason why Kona has value on the first place is not because it’s a goal you have to not only struggle for, but spend significantly on. There’s a reason why 70.3 Honu is less demanded than Kona, why 70.3 Lahti was less interesting than 70.3 Worlds in Lahti etc. The difficulty of the prize influences the perceived value in chasing after it.
Here’s a pretty epic study showing how the scarcity of a cookie increases in female desire to have more: APA PsycNet
Cookies were rated 300% higher in the desire to have another cookie when the exact same cookie was more scarce.
This does pretty conclusively (to me at least), suggest IM is on to something about seeing female customers drop off after they eat their Kona cookie, if they know they can always come back for another one next time.
The PR question will likely win (and is), seemingly to Ironman’s long term detriment if the value of a WC product has any relevance to their future success.
No, I’ve started with Women in Tri UK’s hypothesis/conclusion, that women are more competitive than men. I could tell that they did the math wrong, but that does not necessarily imply that the conclusion is incorrect. It was possible that doing the right math would also show them to be more competitive.
I took the time to do the math right, and I presented various perspectives on the result, including being honest enough to include the “whole field” chart, which looks less favorable to men.
The result shows no evidence to support WiTUK’s hypothesis.
If you read my post carefully you would notice that I specifically don’t use time. I use speed (inverse of time). In racing, speed is the commodity one is trying to maximize, accumulate, retain. A perfectly competitive race is one in which every competitor has exactly the same amount of speed and it’s a photo finish with the whole field crossing the line at once. A perfectly non-competitive race is one where all of the speed is consolidated in a single athlete – one finisher and everyone else takes infinite time.
If you have a superior framing of race competitiveness I’m honestly very interested to hear it.
This isn’t my data, it’s Ironman’s.
And it’s not my idea to give more slots to more competitive AGs, that was suggested by a handful of other folks somewhere in the ~1800 posts above. But it makes some intuitive sense, so I took the time to show one way that this idea could be manifested. Notice that I didn’t say “this is the right way”, “this is what IM should do”, or anything along those lines. I actually made a point of saying this is “just for fun.”
Again, you don’t seem to have read my post. Bigger AGs are not more competitive. Look at the top 20% or top 10% charts, the lines are basically flat.
You have missed the point of my post. The point was to re-evaluate the assertion raised by WiTUK that women or more competitive than men. That assertion is independent of any KQ system, and obviously must be evaluated based on race results themselves. It has nothing to do with KQ.
Evaluating the relative “fairness” of different qual systems is a different topic. But I agree it’s interesting.
Since you suggested it, sure, let’s apply Gini as you suggest – assign 0 “wealth” to everyone who doesn’t get a slot and 1 “wealth” to those who get slots.
The Gini coefficient in this case is equal to the proportion of the field that doesn’t get a slot (and recall, larger number = more inequality). That is, it evaluates the result as having more inequality when all of the “wealth” is concentrated in a smaller proportion of the population. Try it yourself here.
So proportional allocation gets us as close as possible to an equal measure of “slot inequality” across all AGs
Equal allocation (exactly N slots for every AG) yields much higher levels of “slot inequality” for large AGs than small AGs
I would say this “proves” the fairness of proportional allocations, but it’s so obvious I think that’s giving it too much credit. We don’t need Gini to “prove” that 5% of a small group is the same proportion as 5% of a big group.
This is not an issue, it’s what fairness looks like, by your own suggested measure. Gini of 95 zeros + 5 ones is equal to the Gini of 19 zeros and 1 one.
Your point is perfectly made, and I agree, but I actually think even more so is just the simple reality of the bike. 53% of USA swimming membership are female. As you point out, increasingly women are at parity with males in running demographics. Meanwhile 80% of cyclists are male. I wonder if a 6-8 hour bike ride could have anything to do from deterring women from entering a bike race, if they…errr, don’t bike.
Yep,I think that is most likely the big factor. Costs involved with cycling,training time (especially for Ironman)and the fear of dealing with traffic. Finding female cycling groups is much harder than running groups and lets be honest,male cycling groups “can be” full of male egos that women just dont want to deal with.
Right outside my door here on the Gold Coast there is a shared path and every morning at around 5am the parade begins with literally hundreds of female runners and walkers doing their thing. The surf clubs are getting into summer season and girls are out there on the weekends, swimming,paddling and running on the beach.
The closer you get to Surfers Paradise the numbers are in the thousands and is repeated in the evening. Now,I rode through those crowds yesterday for 5k on my way to an epic new bike path that stretches around 14k and guess what ,on the out and back trip,not one female cyclist was seen.
Societal issues really take affect in countries where it isnt the social norm for women to participate in sport at all.
Ironically, there have been some studies done that suggest that cycling is actually safer for women, at least as far as traffic is concerned. Female cyclists are typically given more space than male cyclists for overtakes.
Obviously there’s a whole raft of other things going on though
By and large, I think you’re reading a little too much into the scarcity argument, and not enough into the “we set plans in motion to move everybody back to a one day in Kona” and started by reducing slot availability for women.
Change that to …. “by reducing the slot available to the group that turned down slots more often.” and I think we’re on the same page
Other than that, I’m not sure if Ironman started with saying, “how do we make and keep slots more scarce”. So while I agree I’m putting a lot of weight on the scarcity thing, I’m doing looking outside in as an effect, not necessarily as a policy price driver like we assume De Beer diamonds does.
The impact of making things less scarce is people want them less. In this case, with female Kona slots going from 1600 in 2025 to 500-600 in 2026, the pendulum swings the other direction and people should want them more.
If IM was evaluating things on scarcity principles alone (which I agree they likely weren’t) it also would have informed their Kona-Nice cycle decisions. Roll downs weren’t just happening because Nice wasn’t nice enough, but because there were too many cookies visibly in the jar. Maybe there were things IM could have done to make an event that was twice as easy (or more) to get into than before seem more scarce? Other than tripling the price I guess…
I don’t think the Nice part of that equation can be understated. I think for women, moreso than men, it was Kona or bust. (Men’s Nice did have more roll downs than Kona, too, but when you have a smaller population segment, it’s more acute of an issue).
The issue of scarcity driving demand doesn’t work when the narrative surrounding that scarcity (whether rightly or wrongly) is whether that scarcity is biased against gender / sex.
Ultimately I still start with the question of “what are we trying to accomplish with an IRONMAN World Championship for age group participants” and then draw conclusions based off of those answers. Which, well, can result in a whole lot of various conclusions.
Probably something like… use the IMWC to –> Maximally increase brand value and owner equity over the short and long term in a way that maintains a healthy ecosystem conducive to business and operations among the various Ironman stakeholders.
That can include using whatever profitable results they have to generate great PR, but I don’t think IM ought to really put a lot of stock in “this is the best M55 or F45 age grouper in the world!!!”
I love this mathematical framing of the word “competitiveness”. Well articulated
'A perfectly competitive race is one in which every competitor has exactly the same amount of speed and it’s a photo finish with the whole field crossing the line at once. A perfectly non-competitive race is one where all of the speed is consolidated in a single athlete – one finisher and everyone else takes infinite time."
Perhaps ,if Mark Allen and the Feisty Girls were really serious about,more women in Kona,they might look beyond their own borders to try and help.
From the above article.
"This list of 1,600 consists of athletes from 78 different countries and territories, as well as all six inhabited continents. Forty percent of the women in the lineup are European, making it the most-represented continent on the list.
Next up is North America with 35 percent of the athletes. Asia and Latin America are next, both of which have more than eight percent, and Oceania brings seven percent to the table. Finally, Africa and the Middle East combine for the final two percent."
Incidentally, a recent XC race a qualifying sectionals event my son’s team won had four boys fighting for first place. At some point they all agreed to just stick together and cross the finish line together in the last mile or so.
Thankfully, none of the kids were on our team, but I was pretty annoyed when I heard the story. Perfectly competitive, while ignoring the concept of competition indeed! And ya, the official results had 0.1-0.2s etc differences between them.
haha, this is like when German played Austria in World cup 1982 and magically played poorly enough so their German speaking neighbours could advance to the next round and Algeria was eliminated:
The Disgrace of Gijón (1982)
The scenario: In the final group match, both West Germany and Austria knew a 1-0 victory for Germany would be enough for both teams to advance, eliminating Algeria.
The match: After West Germany scored in the 11th minute, the game essentially stopped. The teams passed the ball around with minimal effort, and the match became so slow and uneventful it was widely condemned.
The reaction: Spectators, particularly the Algerians, booed loudly. The Austrian television commentator even urged viewers to change the channel, and a Spanish newspaper ran the match report in the crime section, reports The Guardian and Reddit.
The aftermath: Algeria protested to FIFA, but the result was allowed to stand. In response, FIFA changed the rules so that all final group games for each group are now played at the same time.
German, Austria and Algeria ended up with 4 points but had Austria given up more goals, Algeria ws advancing. This is what shook out in the lead up:
In a major World Cup upset,
Algeria defeated West Germany
[image]
2−12 minus 1
2−1
in their opening match of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. The Algerian team won the match with goals from Rabah Madjer and an unnamed player, and the win was their first ever against a European team in the World Cup. The result was especially significant because it was their first ever match at a World Cup, and West Germany had drastically underestimated them.
Final Score: Algeria
[image]
2−1
West Germany
Match Date: June 16, 1982
Location: Estadio El Molinón in Gijón, Spain
Key Algerian Players: Madjer (one goal), and Chaabane Merzekane (man of the match)
Key German Player: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (one goal)
Significance:
One of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.
The first time an African or Arab team had defeated a European team at the World Cup.
Aftermath:
Algeria went on to beat Chile
[image]
3−2
in their final group game, making them the first African or Arab team to win twice at a World Cup.
The match between West Germany and Austria, dubbed the “Disgrace of Gijón,” resulted in a controversial result that benefited both teams but saw Algeria eliminated, leading FIFA to change rules so that the final group games were played simultaneously.
You can imagine the international blowback outside of Europe in the global south when two European teams colluded and chose to not be competitive to lock out an African squad from advancing. And this was Karl Heinz Rummenige’s squad (player at the time).
OK back to the whining but as you point out the perfect math definition can be played by real world actors defeating competition in the first place
7 of the top 10 at IMNZ were M35-39. All are getting performance pool slots. I got 4th M35-39. Not taking my slot if case any lurker is hoping for a roll down
I had a flight, hotel and car booked for NZ and was about to register for the Ironman in December, but I decided to go to Ottawa instead. Bummer, looks like my prediction time even if 20 minutes slower than expected would have taken care of business and got a Kona slot.
