Wow over 15,000 Someone REALLY wants to go.
M~
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2918&item=7158727852&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
Wow! How much did the other ebay slots go for? Everything is relative though. I know many people worth hundreds of millions of dollars and to them 15 grand is not a lot of money. However to me it is still a ton of money I guess I won’t win that auction.
The bidding started at $10k. 100% of the proceeds go to charity. That makes much more sense to me than spending $15k just to buy your way into Kona. People go crazy at charity auctions sometimes.
I was at a charity dinner last week where somebody paid $24,000 for 4 floor seats to a Laker game. What if the game sucks?
I could not imagine paying 24 grand to see this past year’s Lakers team.
one of the last slots about 3 weeks ago went for about $40,000
I would rather earn a chance to race, somethings can not be bought
.
My take on the whole Kona thing…
“Oh…I get to race in Kona…since …I’m rich”
So much for being the “World Championship”!
My take on the whole Kona thing…
“Oh…I get to race in Kona…since …I’m rich”
So much for being the “World Championship”!
You’re right, but why is that any worse than a lottery slot? At least these people are donating big money to build a YMCA.
Wow! How much did the other ebay slots go for? Everything is relative though. I know many people worth hundreds of millions of dollars and to them 15 grand is not a lot of money. However to me it is still a ton of money I guess I won’t win that auction.
All the others went for over $30,000 (up to $36,200). Yeah, that just slightly exceeds my tri budget for the year!
Chris
No. I’d say these are very high income and marginally deranged persons who want to do this quickly and get this out of the way as one of their life’s goals. I know one of them. He’s not that wealthy.
Truly rational, wealthy business persons WOULD NOT pay that much for something like this, even if this were a bigtime hobby for them. They just don’t. They’d try to compete to qualify and beat people, just like they beat people in terms of money.
I used to work for one of the most wealthiest businessmen down here, as a clerk, during law school. He’d send me to Wendy’s with 7 bucks, and he’d want to know where the $1.12 change was when I got back. This kind of mindset is ever present, every second, every minute of the day and night, with wealthy, rich people, even if they own 41 race horses and 4 jets and half of the county and play golf at Augusta. And they would not be bidding on this stuff.
My post has nothing to do with $$ for charity…its a “World Championship” …keep it that way. No lottery slots, no charity slots, no corporate buy in slots, No “I lost 200 pounds on Weight Watchers” slots…its a “World Championship” for pete’s sake…
If you want a slot…there’s plenty of IM slots to go around in other M dot races. Go to one of those!
This is really my only pet peeve in triathlon…Kona IS supposed to be the “World Championship”…earn it…or go somewhere else to race! BTW…I’m not near fast enough to EVER qualify.
Nuf said…ranting done…sorry
Zipp-
My memories a little fuzzy on this but I remember reading that the lottery was a contingency of the sale of Ironman to WTC. The former owner wanted to keep a way for the ‘common man’ to still race at Kona.
Now, the fact that the WTC has made the lottery a cash cow was an unintended consequence but the spirit of the whole thing was to keep Kona ‘open’ to everyone.
Theres’ only 1 winner in each division. Of the 1600 people competing, a small percentage is going for the “world championship”. There’s room for some lottery spots. Its great that IM is giving something back to Kona. Our town gets descended upon every October and we welcome the athletes and their families. The local businesses and residents are the volunteers that make the race possible. If 5 people paid their way in thereby donating $200K collectively, all the better. Those 5 people still have to put in the miles just like everyone else. Don’t be such an elitist, that’s not what triathlon is about…kj
Don’t be such an elitist, that’s not what triathlon is about…kj
Based on the content of many of these threads, being elitist is exactly what triathlon is about. No? (heh heh heh)
Believing and leaving Kona as the “World Championship”, as it is billed by itself, is NOT being elitist. For pete’s sake…every time someone around this forum doesn’t agree with someone else they are branded “elitist”. I’m about as far from elitist as you can get…you don’t even know me…I have a right to call the World Championship (their title not mine) a “true” “World Championship”…not a race for the “masses”. This is not about $$ for the town, $$ for charity, Billy Joe racing his first IM…or anything else you can think of that fits the “how I got to race Kona” list. If they wish it to be the Championship then MAKE it one!! Use the other bunches of M Dot races as races for the masses and all that stuff. I for one…and I’m allowed an opinion…beleive that you should “earn” your right to have a slot.
Following you line of logic regarding a “Triathlon World Championship” I guess you would also recommend doing away with the age group classifications because this type of system does not allow all of the entries to be given the the fastest athletes, and since all of the other IM races are qualifiers for the World Championships then one would have to do away with the age group slots at those races as well.
That was a hell of a leap! People here love to cut everyone else’s posts all to hell. Please remember, everyone has an opinion, right or wrong, and amout 99% of the time you’ll never change anyones mines with your posts.
Believing and leaving Kona as the “World Championship”, as it is billed by itself, is NOT being elitist. For pete’s sake…every time someone around this forum doesn’t agree with someone else they are branded “elitist”. I’m about as far from elitist as you can get…you don’t even know me…I have a right to call the World Championship (their title not mine) a “true” “World Championship”…not a race for the “masses”. This is not about $$ for the town, $$ for charity, Billy Joe racing his first IM…or anything else you can think of that fits the “how I got to race Kona” list. If they wish it to be the Championship then MAKE it one!! Use the other bunches of M Dot races as races for the masses and all that stuff. I for one…and I’m allowed an opinion…beleive that you should “earn” your right to have a slot.
Hate to break it to you, but just because WTC calls it the “World Championship” does not make it so. Certainly the ITU doesn’t think so, as they have their own long course world championship. Just as the US “World Series” is not a true “world” championship recognized by anything other than Major League Baseball.
Face it: Kona is a business venture, with a highly successful marketing scheme. If you’ve bought into the WC aspect, then they did their job. They probably don’t even consider their race to be a real WC. Good thing they don’t call it the “Galactic Championship”…
You need to go back and do a historical study on the Kona race so you can understand the fullness of what Kona means…
Have you tried to qualify for Hawaii? I’m 35-39 AG right now, and we can look at qualifying spots at last week’s Disney 1/2…AG winner went 4:17…Kona slots were gone well under 4:30…IM qualifying times are often even more astounding…
Surely this means I would be racing many (though certainly not all, for varying reasons) of the best in my AG…regardless of how many charity or lottery slots there are…
Give it a rest on the charity/lottery bashing…it isn’t going to affect YOUR race, if you are fast enough to qualify…
Zipp
Unless you’re very, very new to the sport you should know that long before it was the long course World Championship it was a race for anyone with the balls to do it. It’s always been as much about what happens after sunset and before midnight as it is about who breaks the tape. Do a little research. Find some interviews with John Collins and listen to what he says about Ironman Hawaii. It’s fine to have an opinion. But not an opinion that flys in the face of fact.
has a serious contender for the ‘world championship’ ever been somehow kept out of the race because of all the age-groupers/lottery winners there? i mean, a guy like reid, deboom or stadler, standing on the sidelines saying…dammit! i couldn’t get in this time because of the lottery? (maybe i just haven’t heard about it…)
if not, i don’t think the world championship label is in any way diluted by having all sorts of people there. blazing fast is blazing fast, no matter who comes in eight hours later (or how they got there).
unless–gasp!–going slow is somehow contagious?