if the equalizer is based on some type of analysis of average times of male vs. female, for x number of top finishers, over a sample of races, then there may be some factors they might not be considering. for the itu women, we usually see barb, sheila, and/or reback dominating the swim, resulting in more spread out chase packs on the bike, and a wider spread of finishers at the end of the run depending on individual strengths and position throughout the race. for the men, pretty often it’s a pack of 20 from the starting gun all the way to T2, with a footrace separating the top 10 guys by a minute. point being is that it seems to me that the average for whatever sample of male competitors will be closer to the #1 finisher, where the women’s times will be more spread out among the top finishers, therefore watering down the sample times used to analyze the womens’ performances, and voila, bigger head start. i think the equalization committee will have to consider these qualitative factors if this is the case, or the men are going to keep getting hosed.
not to take anything away at all from harrop, as she still would have won it with a more reasonable 8 minute cushion, but 11 minutes is bullshit.
I’m going to disagree with your analysis. The problem is the last two years there has been a one person anomaly off the front and that person happens to be female. Remember the 1st year Walton was only 15 seconds off Barb. Pretty fair, that one. Last year Barb dominated, but the men took the next FIVE spots I believe. So what do you do? Give the men an additional 2 minutes so Simon catches Barb and the men end up with 9 of the top 10? That doesn’t sound very fair.
This year again, the men & women are pretty evenly distributed except Loretta off the front. Notice also that Walton and Kemper were several minutes closer to Barb this year than last.
I don’t think there is a better solution. You are correct that the men are a tighter pack. Unfortunately, that means if one of them wins then they dominate the top positions. Fairness and money aside. It wouldn’t look very sporting for the Lifetime organization to post results with with only 1 or 2 women in the top 10, even if that was a fair equalizer. In the end, I think Lifetime fulfills their goals for this race everytime a woman wins and the minor placing get distributed. That “looks” good to an innocent bystander for which Lifetime is trying to attract. It’s IS their race after all.
i don’t think there is a real solution using the current format. i am aware that the men were closely bunched last year (other 8 not name walton were probably drafting. by the way did you notice like 20 guys come into t2 in this year’s race?). but i don’t think that 9 out of the top 10 being men inherently makes the cushion unfair, if there was a secondary pack of women very closely behind. then that would be a case of the men as a group putting a relatively better performance then the women. speaking hypothetically of course. perhaps an alternative solution may be to keep an equalizer format, but award the overall prize to the top finisher of whichever gender has a faster combined time based on 3,5 or whatever number of finishers in that gender. so if the top 5 women have a faster combined time then the top 5 men with the equalizer, then the organizers can say that the women beat the men, and the top female ends up with the fat paycheck. or at least try to exclude ITU races in determining the equalizer. i think that plays a significant factor in what i consider a flaw with their calculations, with the draft legal races favoring the men to compete in a tighter pack. and stamp out drafting on the bike (if there was any)
btw, i do not know exactly how they come up with the formula. i could be totally wrong, they could use a magic 8 ball to pick the time, with would make my original observations pretty worthless.
mainly the source of my rant is that this cash prize is a monsterous payday for any pro triathlete, and that if lifetime’s goal is to get the women to finish up top perenially, well that’s borderline discrimination. of course you need a big prize to entice such an elite field, but if you’re giving half the pot to the overall winner, you’d have to make the system as foolproof as you can. i’d prefer to see both the top male and female both get a generous prize, and have the equalizer champ have a modest bonus thrown up top. i just think it’s crazy that walton can totally bust his ass like that, collapse at the finish line, and get 4th place prize money (that’s what it sounded like. please correct me if i’m incorrect). done ranting now and not at all trying to start a flame. just airing out some opnions.
They don’t use ITU races to determine the equalizer.
Walton still got a huge bonus for being top male in addition to being 4th overall.
He busted his ass and fell to the ground because Kemper was only 6 seconds behind him and losing top male prize money was worth more than 4th vs. 5th prize money. I don’t have the prize money break down in front of me, but I’m pretty sure Walton made more than Barb (even though Barb was 3rd and he 4th) on the day by taking 1st overall male.
I seriously doubt Walton is crying in his beer. In the last 3 years he’s earned about $100K from Lifetime. Not bad for 6 hours of work. That’s a better hourly wage than the IM Hawaii winner.
The subject of age and gender handicaps has been a matter of interest to me for years. I’ve done a number of studies on the subject, both within our sport and across the three disciplines which comprise it - and if you are interested in seeing them, go to www.cooltri.com. To make a long story short, my analyses point to a pretty constant theme: that if you eliminate age from consideration, the difference between the sexes is somewhere between 10 and 11% of the men’s world record time for the distance. As one might expect, there are a few anomalies (such as Janet Evans times in the 800 and 1500 free), but they seem pretty few and far between.
So, if you posit that the fastest man in the world would go about 1:50 on the typical Olympic distance course, then 10% of that would be 11 minutes and 11% would be 12.1 minutes. In my view, therefore, the spot given the women in this year’s LTF was if anything skewed towards the men.
One other matter of note. Loretta has had a pretty nice career: one gold and one silver at worlds plus two Goodwill golds, and she and Barb are likely to win two of the three medals in Athens this year. Loretta is a really complete triathlete: world class swimmer, very strong biker, and - when healthy - one of the top runners in the sport. And of course, we all know what Barb is capable of doing. Not taking anything away from Walton, but did the men’s field at 2004 LTF have that kind of quality?
I talked to several of the pros yesterday and today. Some thought that the buffer was way too huge and some thought the men would rock. It’s extremely hard for the organizers to come up with the equalizer time, especially since the course was longer all around this year. I know that they did put a lot of time and research into how they came up with the final equalizer, using races such as Chicago to use as a basis…
Disagree w/ ya Jonny. I think it’s a great idea and I think they’ve done the best they can w/ the ‘equalizer.’
I like the idea b/c it’s something different. Olympic racing doesn’t interest me that much & I’ve already seen a bunch of IM races. It’s cool to see the men & women race head to head. I watched the coverage & it was cool to see world class men trying to outsprint world class women at the finish.
