The way that the IM commentators were talking about it, it’s a record at an IM branded event. But you’re right, the true record is Haug at Roth.
On the topic of certification of courses - it is odd that most IM and other branded courses do vary so in distance and are usually on the short side vs long side. My own inclination is that for amateurs, if you’re doing a specific loop/route that makes sense as something you’d ride as a group ride, then a few kms short or long is probably fine so long as you advertise the true distance. You’re there to do a nice route moreso than an exact set of measurements - e.g. back when Muskoka was a loop around Lake of Bays (94km) vs the current out and back for 90km.
But if you have an out and back, you better be exact in your measurements - because otherwise what are you doing… just move the cone out another half km and call it a day
But for records, I agree - while it’s cool to see women come close to a big round number, we should be exacting in our course measurements if we’re going to start calling them records.
Haug swam 2:37 faster than Philipp in Roth last year.
Philipp rode well faster than Haug (Hamburg 2025 was 179.7km and Roth 2024 was 178.6km (but 1200+m of climb)).
Philipp ran faster than Haug (both run courses about 41.8km).
Philipp’s T1 + T2 was 6:30 last Sunday; compare that with:
In Roth last year Haug’s combined T time was 3:14 and Philipp’s was 3:40 (best was Reischmann at 2:36!!)
So “if we are talking about Ironman distance” and wish to be pedantic about (no, me neither) we need to interpolate or extrapolate the distances to spec and consider the transition time above or below ‘norm’.
I quoted Thorsten’s “IM Records” preamble in the other thread: “Any post of “Ironman Records” has to be preceded with a discussion that “records” are a tricky concept for the sport of triathlon. First of all, it’s an outside sport on a “natural” course, so there are a lot of variations in climate and topography. (For this reason, some prefer the term “fastest known times”.) Next up, there are often issues about the course accuracy, even leaving aside the technical details on how to properly measure a course. Some races “chase” fast times and maybe don’t go the “extra mile” needed to come up with exactly the right distances.”
I’d go further. Transition sizes and layouts aren’t standardised and I doubt they will be. But they’re part of the race. And race dynamics play a much bigger role than with other timed sports performed outside stadiums on standardised distances - like the marathon, 10k open water swim, etc.
The whole obsession about finishing times and “records” is incentivising race directors to offer downstream swims, underlength courses and to tolerate drafting on the bike in non draft races. I do not like it.
I don’t think “downstream swims” is an incentive issue: it’s just what a venue provides, and think most if not all of the well known ones have many successful years behind (and ahead of) them.
I also suggest that RDs are pretty good at getting courses to spec. They could try harder but if they get each discipline’s distance within 99-101% that’s good enough.
Finally I really think you’re grasping at straws with the drafting wheeze: remember this is about FP of the Pros we’re talking about. Which races do you think “tolerate drafting”, do you really think this is RD driven, and don’t you think Race Ranger helps? Maybe this is more an issue for the men but we’ve seen top results from athletes who separate themselves from the large pack dynamic and it’s frictions.
“race dynamics play a much bigger role”
This. The reason Philipp and Matthews broke the bank is because they are similar athletes, in terms of SBR balance. If either had not been there the other would’ve run it in but mid 2:40s.
Having said that, of course, Haug (one time only in 2024) was just excellent and pushed herself for that 2:38 last summer. Will Philipp do the same in a month’s time at Roth? I’d be amazed. She had to go deep on Sunday. The next time she’ll need to go that deep is on 11th October (Roth offers the chance for a home crowd outing and a win not yet in her palmares.)
You see the bike up to 5% short, maybe more often outside NA? But even if the swim, bike and run were 1% short (which I personally have no issues with), it takes about 5 minutes off an 8 hour race.
Finally I really think you’re grasping at straws with the drafting wheeze: remember this is about FP of the Pros we’re talking about.
I meant the “obsession with finishing times” more generally, not strictly with “world best times”. I do think the records talk may be driving the “I have to hit a PB” thing, which race directors are financially incentivised to facilitate through shorter courses, drafting and downstream swims.
Feel free to identify reputable events where either the run course or the bike course has been >3% short, without advertising as such (eg Roth 2021) because of roadworks or other external perturbation.
Thorsten notes Frankfurt 2017 and 2024, Almere 2021 and Texas 2018 as aberrations (and excludes or ‘notes’).
It is an incentive issue - just a different incentive than you’re thinking. The incentive is 100% about making the course as appealing to age groupers as you can. This either means an easier swim, a faster course, or one that has little elevation. Whether this is because people like PBs or you’re trying to coax first timers to a bigger distance, I’m not sure, but a lot of the hard courses here in NA have fallen away and are left with the easy/fast ones.
I do find it ironic (as a group) that we’re signing up to do this hard challenge but get perturbed when the course is slightly hard. Pan flat has its own challenges…
What’s “reputable” mean? Ironman Chattanooga had a 108 mile / 173 km bike last year. Ironman 70.3 Warsaw had a 53 mile / 85k bike. Roth was 176 km for years (2.2% short), so didn’t exceed the 3% hurdle, but you know, all the “records” people were excited about. Oh, and not trying to move the goal posts or anything (you questioned the magnitude of the course length issue), but Roth was also known for very friendly and numerous media moto riders surrounding the lead pack. Records…
yes having a 3% or even 1% off distance in anything other than the swim is just laziness, or premeditation. How is it that every local 5k/10k/marathon can get the exact distance within inches, with a few 100 competitors, and huge events like Ironmans and the like cannot??
And just for shits and giggles, 3% of the bike is about 7 minutes for the top pros(15+ for BOP), and just a little bit less than that in the run. So not a small amount when added up.
And as for transitions, pretty sure they have been backed out of splits for decades. One of the real shames when everyone compares Dave and Mark’s Kona run from the Ironwar where their T2 time was included. to todays times where it is backed out…Apples to apples is Mark ran a 2;38 and Dave just under 2;40 that year in Kona, and after drilling both the swim and bike…(and no super shoes either. (-;
Of course they all go into total time, but pretty hard to back that out and use overall times as some sort of record base. They tend to be close enough and way less than .5% of total time when comparing their differences. Kind of have to just throw them in with course differences(not distance) and weather, things that just cannot be controlled like actually measuring…
Its worth mentioning that even if the courses “measure” close enough, that they’re still short - anyone whose run a BQ certified course knows that their watch measures 42.6km even if they’ve perfectly run the tangents. Part of this is because no one perfectly runs the tangents, and part of it that certified courses have a small margin of error built in. (And yes, maybe some Garmin drift in congested areas)
So if we’re using everyone’s Garmin to “accurately” measure the course distance, a true course is going to read slightly long.
I chose 3% to tease out from @kajet which courses they had in mind, but drop it below their “up to 5% short” (because that could describe almost every course, including Hamburg). I am by no means suggesting 3% is OK; anything more than 1% is, as you say, premeditation (do not buy ‘laziness’ option) OR some physical road problem (most courses have a 180 that can be used to fine tune the distance).
“As for transitions” again they are what they are: no RD will make them longer (or shorter) than the water edge/exit and bike racking space dictates. On %ages (your “. . way less than 0.5% of total time when comparing their differences”) I observe that Philipp’s combined transition time was 1.3% of her total time whereas Haug’s in Roth was 0.7%.
In marathon running 1 meter short is not ok …
Same in pool swimming , pools that don’t want to be forced to have competitions make the pool a tiny bit short…
I don’t remember what tolerance a 50 m pool has, I think 2 cm .
you cant accept a world best if the course is not certified.
And certainly can’t accept GPS watches to certify then …
If Kleiser ever learns how to swim she is going to be dangerous. And she looked like athletes from 1979 in that T2, tying her shoes and taking forever to put on stuff she could have done on the run. It literally cost her the podium today, hope she doesnt have a coach because a horrible look to miss such obvious time hacks…
Lucy looked great all day as did Sam. Think that run course was hard looking at times, even though dead flat. Feels like both had to go deep for wins, lots of massages to Vancouver next week for sure. Foley has to be stoked along with Sodaro, finally had a race where they were actually racing…Very surprised on lack of field depth in an Ironman series race, guess so many are chasing different goals this season. Need to do something about the lead woman’s domestics though, super unfair to Lucy…
Would have been a lot different of course if Lionel actually pitched up, imagine he would have been in front with the bike leader and we would have seen same result from his last race. Too bad he had to give this one a miss for us fans…
I’d argue its prohibitively expensive to certify an ironman bike course, and it really only matters so people can claim “best times”, which ultimately mean nothing. What they currently do is fine
I look at it more like bike racing. We talk converstionally about speed increases over time, but nobody is seriously talking about the “paris roubaix record”
Ha yes I sorta look at it like if it’s your athlete or race or sponsored athlete that has the “record”, you’ll brag on it, but the rest of the sport will just give it more of a thumbs up. More for conversational of, ok they can do X pace, etc within each but somehow a “'record”…meh.
Well in other threads people go on about bonuses which are worth more than the event win prize. Presumably Philipp breaking the world best time for a marathon at the end of a full distance is worth a bit. And if it’s just IRONMAN branded races, Philipp’s 2:38 beat her own ‘best ever IM run time’ (I think this was her IMWC run last year (2:44)).
Of course that’s why I mentioned sponsors. But overall when you can’t really validate the actual race distances, I mean aren’t you posting every week about going to strava to see what the athlete’s distances are showing up as from their race files? So if there’s no real certification process (triathlon doesn’t need it like running does as well), again a “record” is only as good as what it can legitly stand on. So again in that aspect it’s much more conversational about abilitites and less this is the record that we all know by heart etc. So I’ll stand by it, records overall are just a cool story bro feel to them. (But again you bet your ass if I coached an athlete to a “record” I’d be bragging on it, so as I said they are great for the individual, less so overall in the sport imo).
And I don’t even care if it’s short/long as long as it’s within a small percentage, unless some emergency causes it to be way short. What wasn’t the “IM” record like half a dozen years ago from a 94mi bike ride. No one took that serious, even though it was a “record”. But that’s the whole issue. If it’s 111.2mi bike course or 25.8mi course, for me that’s fine, but then when your talking about “records”; it’s like it doesn’t really make any sense. Triathlon has always been way more about the venue then the “distance” (even though IM is synonoums with 2.4/112/26.2; but likely times then not they don’'t even actually get those exact distances. Hell we had a olympic race that was what 2-3km longer simply because they wanted to build a kickass course. Did anyone give a shit? Hell no.
Means nothing, look at the title of this article, and all the other outlets using the same verbiage. And as someone pointed out, no doubt there are sponsor bonuses tied to these time also, so it does mean something to many of the people racing for them. And no doubt if someone paid the tens of thousands of dollars to certify it, Guiness would also call it a world record too…