More Color on the Women’s Races in Kona and Nice

[admin]

Originally published at: More Color on the Women’s Races in Kona and Nice - Slowtwitch News

We’ll hear from Leisha Woolwine below, who I recruited out of our Reader Forum because of her thoughtful responses there (It’s true! Thoughtfulness exists there!). Leisha participated in Kona last year and just recently Nice – both IRONMAN World Championships and both womens-only races. I was eager to hear how she felt about each and how they compared to each other.

Leisha raced Kona last year on what she called “a roll roll roll down slot – in the batch they sent out in July to fill the race.” It was her first time racing in Kona, but she’d been there spectating previously. Leisha stayed at the Courtyard King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel, known by us all as the “King Kam,” where the race starts and finishes. In Nice she stayed at the Anatara hotel, “which was right at the Expo and Transition; very central location.”

Kona is an easier trip for her as she lives in the Bay Area and flies from SFO. For Nice, her itinerary was SFO to Charles De Gaulle (Paris), and then south. Also worth noting is Leisha’s throttled-back ambition for this race due to injury. “Multiple fractures in my toe in my qualifying race so I had no idea if I was going to finish the run. I went by feel and enjoyed every moment, which maybe unless you are going to win your AG is the right way to race.”

Here is Leisha’s comparative analysis of the two events. 

What Kona did better:  

1.  Practice swims every day with bag check.  In Nice you could swim anywhere there was not a centralized place.   In Kona you just ran into everyone at the swim  – that was fun. 

2.  Gear check in.  In Kona it is a big deal, at Nice more like regular IRONMAN and this was a bit disappointing but I was also disappointed last year when no vendors showed up to gear check in.  Pre-Covid you got free stuff if you had the vendors gear.  

3.  Post finish line experience.  In Kona there were tons of people just hanging out.  In Nice it was pretty empty.  Maybe it was my later finish time.

4. In T1 and T2 Kona had volunteers. I am pretty much self-sufficient so this is really a push for me, but Kona had water and wet towels. This was really nice. Nice should have had a least water in T1 and T2.

5. Sponsor parties.  PH had a house at Nice, but not sure of any other sponsors who had houses or events.    

What Nice did better:

1.   The swim is a push – but I’ll take  Nice (open exposed swim) over Kona.  I would have preferred no wetsuit. 

2.   The bike – hands down hard and fun and technical – Kona is just plain boring.   

3.   The run is also a push – 4 laps is hard – but other than going into and out of the Energy Lab at sunset Kona is not pretty and is boring; Nice is gorgeous in the day and the night.  

4.   You are in Nice – work kept us from staying longer, but we did pop into Monaco for dinner one night and saw a UAE rider on the way – not to mention George Hincapie was staying at my hotel.  Next time we would probably stay longer  and explore more of the Cote D’Azur.  

And also…

“The expo: Kona’s might have been bigger – but Nice was fine – and Nice had better finisher gear on Monday which I thought was interesting, though it could have been a reaction to poor supply at Kona.

“What I was not expecting in Nice were large amounts of tourists still around and clueless to the race. I don’t view this as a plus or minus – just was not expecting that. But I did like that we did not take over the town and we could blend in. There was a race vibe near the race, and then it was just being in Nice away from the venue. There was also a very high level of security anywhere near the venue; bags were always checked going into the expo. There was also high security getting into T1 on race morning.

“Kona or Nice: If I could only do one I would pick Nice every time, and am planning on going back in 2026 It is just cooler. I can’t explain it and I know it will take time to weaken the hold Kona has, but I would hope that true triathletes would want the best WC course that the World has to offer. I think there is a place for Kona, but for the sport to flourish IRONMAN has to look beyond Kona as the sole WC location.

“On the Women/Men split: I love having my own day. As a FOP swimmer, racing with men is just not fun. But I do think that IM should try to get us on the same continent.

“Finally, one thing stands out to me regarding my comments above: Kona has a lot of ‘experience’ in putting on a WC and Nice is in the beginning stages. Perhaps IRONMAN lost money on the women’s race in Nice, but change is not going to happen overnight. I do hope that IRONMAN gives Nice the time to shine for the women.”

If you wonder about Leisha’s tri background, “first tri was Escape from Alcatraz in 1997.” She was a short-courser until IRONMAN Canada in 2006 and since then mostly all 70.3s and Fulls except for Escape from Alcatraz annually if not injured. Nice was her 12th IRONMAN.

[Nick_wovebike]

Love these reflections and mini case studies!

My curiosity: if we look at women’s pro cycling as a case study and how it has truly gained legitimacy in the past couple of years, what can triathlon learn from this? Does the separate women’s race set women’s triathlon up for following in the footsteps of the legitimacy that women’s cycling has achieved?

Are we seeing an increase in women’s participation in road, gravel, and mountain bike racing as women’s cycling has gained legitimacy? Can triathlon also achieve this growth by being patient and providing women’s triathlon with the appropriate platform, like Road, gravel and mountain biking have done in cycling?

related: looking forward to the women’s competition at Red Bull Rampage this year.

[E_DUB]

I think it shows we are on the right track but these things take time and continued investment. My hope is that we invest wisely in both time and money so that we can keep the flame buring long enough for the foundation of new women to enter the sport. What I believe has happend in the past is the influx of money and time has been a little TOO much TOO fast and the returns on that didnt pan out so the lose of interest on $$ support left early before real growth could happen. Things take time. Let’s keep fighting the fight so we can win the war not just the battle.

[apo72]

It’s interesting to see Slowtwitch is trying its best to promote Nice. Despite numbers clearly telling very different story. I wonder if that’s sponsored by IM or just their own idee fixe

[stinkyshoes]

It’s interesting to see Slowtwitch only allow likes but not allow thumbs down.

[pk]

@apo72

It’s interesting to see Slowtwitch is trying its best to promote Nice. Despite numbers clearly telling very different story. I wonder if that’s sponsored by IM or just their own idee fixe

Are you an female that did the race if so why not post your experience ?
Or are you just a Kona fantatic by any chance …

[juniormint]

Do you also have your own Kona and Nice experiences that you would like to share? Because I was actually wondering the very same thing last night about Slowtwitch seemingly promoting NIce. I am neutral and haven’t been to either race as a competitor. I really enjoyed the two write-ups by the women who wrote their race reviews on the other thread and came away feeling Kona was the preferred location overall. I found myself wondering if Slowtwitch has an agenda or vested interest in Nice. Why create a new thread and front page article when that thread already existed?

[rrheisler]

1.) We receive precisely zero dollars for these articles (outside of whatever revenue we might generate from banner ads).
2.) Our new CMS and forum architecture creates a new thread whenever we post a front-page article (as it’s essentially the comment function for the front page).
3.) If you’re asking for my semi-humble, occasionally professional opinion: we as a sport need two days in the same location. Whether that’s Kona or somewhere else – well, I used to be of the mindset that you couldn’t possibly move the thing from Kona. I am no longer of that mindset.

[devashish_paul]

@apo72

It’s interesting to see Slowtwitch is trying its best to promote Nice. Despite numbers clearly telling very different story. I wonder if that’s sponsored by IM or just their own idee fixe

Did you read what @E_DUB wrote above. He and many of us are saying this will take investment and time.

From the eariiest days of PNF and Erin Baker, triathlon got things right with equal distances and equal pay and in the Olympics, by definition women’s and men’s sport are run separately (ex marathon which is otherwise mass intermingled participation on all other days and events).

The actual numbers in Nice itself don’t matter if the worldwide series grows in volume of women because of it. A bunch of people are just focused on women in Kona or women in Nice.

Let’s let time play things out and park some of the negativily (accusing ST of being sponsored by IM)

[devashish_paul]

@rrheisler

1.) We receive precisely zero dollars for these articles (outside of whatever revenue we might generate from banner ads).
2.) Our new CMS and forum architecture creates a new thread whenever we post a front-page article (as it’s essentially the comment function for the front page).
3.) If you’re asking for my semi-humble, occasionally professional opinion: we as a sport need two days in the same location. Whether that’s Kona or somewhere else – well, I used to be of the mindset that you couldn’t possibly move the thing from Kona. I am no longer of that mindset.

At this point I have raced Kona 3x and 70.3 Worlds 7x (obviously in varying locations). The one location two day format per gender is just awesome. It definitely does not need to be in Kona. My last trip trip to Kona was for the Honu 70.3 and as much as I like going there with a sliver of the population having a latent push back to people on bikes (we are kind of like invaders of the locale creating inconveniene), my mind changed completely to “get this worlds outta Kona to somewhere else” given that all my 70.3 Worlds trips the communities were glad to have us.

Of course the businesses in Kona want us, but there is just multi decades of being tired with an annual two week long invasion by many. I bet if you asked Parisiens to hold the next Olympics because for some reason LA cannot, they would say NO…twice in 100 years is enough, we don’t need to do it three times

[apo72]

I am not a woman. And I am not fantastic:) Sorry if it makes you feel disappointed. But women are even more skeptical about Nice: there were almost two times more of them wanting to race Kona last year vs Nice this year.

[Lurker4]

In terms of fairness, triathlon absolutely got it right with equal pay and the recent attempts to give women equal access to races.

The thing is, fairness doesn’t always win out in nature.

It’s not fair to the branches that get pruned to strengthen those that remain.

People aren’t branches, is the proper retort. True true. But people aren’t exactly the sport of triathlon either.

I totally agree that the goal should be two races in the same place. Whether it’s a day or a week between them, that seems the most efficient way to run the business.

If you’re making a gamble on multi-year losses to help that tree grow…at least don’t try to tend to two different trees on opposite sides of the world.

[apo72]

@rrheisler

1.) We receive precisely zero dollars for these articles (outside of whatever revenue we might generate from banner ads).
2.) Our new CMS and forum architecture creates a new thread whenever we post a front-page article (as it’s essentially the comment function for the front page).
3.) If you’re asking for my semi-humble, occasionally professional opinion: we as a sport need two days in the same location. Whether that’s Kona or somewhere else – well, I used to be of the mindset that you couldn’t possibly move the thing from Kona. I am no longer of that mindset.

Re 1&2 Understood, thanks
Re. 3 The sense I am getting is that as Slowtwitch you are crossing the line between trying to report objectively this issue vs promoting your opinion. I appreciate this report (and some others re Nice experience). But for some reason you decided to promote just one PoV. I know that “objective” will always be difficult to define but the numbers (# of participants “voting” for Kona vs Nice, depth of roll down, etc) are telling different story. Obviously I have my own subjective PoV based on my first hand experience of both places and less than representative sample of opinions from friends racing/spectating both.

[Ajax_Bay]

@apo72

@rrheisler

3.) If you’re asking for my semi-humble, occasionally professional opinion: we as a sport need two days in the same location. Whether that’s Kona or somewhere else – well, I used to be of the mindset that you couldn’t possibly move the thing from Kona. I am no longer of that mindset.

Re. 3 The sense I am getting is that as Slowtwitch you are crossing the line between trying to report objectively this issue vs promoting your opinion. I appreciate this report (and some others re Nice experience). But for some reason you decided to promote just one PoV. I know that “objective” will always be difficult to define but the numbers (# of participants “voting” for Kona vs Nice, depth of roll down, etc) are telling a different story. Obviously I have my own subjective PoV based on my first hand experience of both places and less than representative sample of opinions from friends racing/spectating both.

Propositions in priority order:
A. The women’s IRONMAN World Champs must have its own race, with no interference by male athletes.
B. For preference, the men’s and the women’s IRONMAN World Champs should be at the same venue within 7 days.

Do you agree, @apo72 with either or both of those whether or not Kona can (or is prepared to) meet those requirements?

[stevej]

I’m concerned with any communities ability to support a 2 day IMWC. I’m even concerned with IM’s staff ability to do so. I think it was reported on a podcast but many staffers didn’t sleep for 3 days in Kona 2022. For the community, it’s a much bigger ask for volunteers for a 17 hour race…. twice. Not to mention the 3-4 hours prior to the race. 70.3 worlds is less than half of that total time. For a 2 day race, I think IM will struggle to get all the volunteers they would prefer and will have to make sacrifices (less aid stations, less support, etc) to put on a 2 day race which IMO brings down the quality of the event. And whoever races on the second day will get the short end of the stick as they will struggle to get volunteers for that day.

I think the 2 day race elevates housing prices for all of us. Kona 2022 prices were absolutely ridiculous and higher than their already high prices (I admit Covid had an impact here as well). Would the prices have been the same if it was a 1 day race? Lahti was similar and many people were scrambling trying to find affordable places to stay.

[rrheisler]

@stevej

I’m concerned with any communities ability to support a 2 day IMWC. I’m even concerned with IM’s staff ability to do so. I think it was reported on a podcast but many staffers didn’t sleep for 3 days in Kona 2022. For the community, it’s a much bigger ask for volunteers for a 17 hour race…. twice. Not to mention the 3-4 hours prior to the race. 70.3 worlds is less than half of that total time. For a 2 day race, I think IM will struggle to get all the volunteers they would prefer and will have to make sacrifices (less aid stations, less support, etc) to put on a 2 day race which IMO brings down the quality of the event. And whoever races on the second day will get the short end of the stick as they will struggle to get volunteers for that day.

I think the 2 day race elevates housing prices for all of us. Kona 2022 prices were absolutely ridiculous and higher than their already high prices (I admit Covid had an impact here as well). Would the prices have been the same if it was a 1 day race? Lahti was similar and many people were scrambling trying to find affordable places to stay.

A fair amount of this just comes with the territory of anything in-demand in the travel/entertainment sector these days, though. See: any concert ticket and secondary market pricing.

I think any race destination with any kind of limited inventory for lodging is going to result in significant pricing pressures. Which then adds that complex layer of “good race locale that also happens to have a near infinite supply of lodging” to it…which makes Nice evermore attractive.

[timbasile]

@stevej

I think the 2 day race elevates housing prices for all of us. Kona 2022 prices were absolutely ridiculous and higher than their already high prices (I admit Covid had an impact here as well). Would the prices have been the same if it was a 1 day race? Lahti was similar and many people were scrambling trying to find affordable places to stay.

I think part of this has to do with the locations selected and the logistics involved.

Kona is a small town in the middle of the Pacific if you double the demand for an already saturated market of course price is going to skyrocket.

Lahti is a bit different in that it’s mostly a student town with little hotels, etc but excellent infrastructure to support commuting in from elsewhere. They did well to get in a commuter train but didn’t announce it until everyone had already booked.

If you pick locations with amble hotels and infrastructure then you won’t get this type of spike. As an extreme example, if you were suddenly able to do your WC on the Vegas strip and provided shuttles to the lake for the swim part so that you could stay on the strip, we’d barely make a dent in that week’s tourism numbers.

Volunteers are another issue entirely, but if housing is a concern, the solution is just to pick locations that can support 5000 athletes and their retinues in a pinch. (These types of locations would also be better volunteer-wise as well)

[devashish_paul]

@timbasile

@stevej

I think the 2 day race elevates housing prices for all of us. Kona 2022 prices were absolutely ridiculous and higher than their already high prices (I admit Covid had an impact here as well). Would the prices have been the same if it was a 1 day race? Lahti was similar and many people were scrambling trying to find affordable places to stay.

I think part of this has to do with the locations selected and the logistics involved.

Kona is a small town in the middle of the Pacific if you double the demand for an already saturated market of course price is going to skyrocket.

Lahti is a bit different in that it’s mostly a student town with little hotels, etc but excellent infrastructure to support commuting in from elsewhere. They did well to get in a commuter train but didn’t announce it until everyone had already booked.

If you pick locations with amble hotels and infrastructure then you won’t get this type of spike. As an extreme example, if you were suddenly able to do your WC on the Vegas strip and provided shuttles to the lake for the swim part so that you could stay on the strip, we’d barely make a dent in that week’s tourism numbers.

Volunteers are another issue entirely, but if housing is a concern, the solution is just to pick locations that can support 5000 athletes and their retinues in a pinch. (These types of locations would also be better volunteer-wise as well)

@timbasile

@stevej

I think the 2 day race elevates housing prices for all of us. Kona 2022 prices were absolutely ridiculous and higher than their already high prices (I admit Covid had an impact here as well). Would the prices have been the same if it was a 1 day race? Lahti was similar and many people were scrambling trying to find affordable places to stay.

I think part of this has to do with the locations selected and the logistics involved.

Kona is a small town in the middle of the Pacific if you double the demand for an already saturated market of course price is going to skyrocket.

Lahti is a bit different in that it’s mostly a student town with little hotels, etc but excellent infrastructure to support commuting in from elsewhere. They did well to get in a commuter train but didn’t announce it until everyone had already booked.

If you pick locations with amble hotels and infrastructure then you won’t get this type of spike. As an extreme example, if you were suddenly able to do your WC on the Vegas strip and provided shuttles to the lake for the swim part so that you could stay on the strip, we’d barely make a dent in that week’s tourism numbers.

Volunteers are another issue entirely, but if housing is a concern, the solution is just to pick locations that can support 5000 athletes and their retinues in a pinch. (These types of locations would also be better volunteer-wise as well)

Replying to @timbasile and @stevej

Given all of the above, that’s why I think it is time to move on from Kona. We have proven it multiple times that there are venues that can absorb 5K athletes over two days at 70.3 worlds which also rotates so the host city needs to only do it once every so often, not yearly.

The second question is 2x140.6 in a few days. Two major questions

1. Can host city deal with road closures all day 48 hrs apartrt

2. Can we as a community roll up enough volunteers (racers and families from one race helping in the other…obviously easier to volunteer two days later than two days before racing)

These do no feel insurmountable

[Slowman]

@juniormint

Do you also have your own Kona and Nice experiences that you would like to share? Because I was actually wondering the very same thing last night about Slowtwitch seemingly promoting NIce. I am neutral and haven’t been to either race as a competitor. I really enjoyed the two write-ups by the women who wrote their race reviews on the other thread and came away feeling Kona was the preferred location overall. I found myself wondering if Slowtwitch has an agenda or vested interest in Nice. Why create a new thread and front page article when that thread already existed?

you cover some ground here but i’ll do my best.

i asked on our reader forum, just prior to nice, whether anyone was racing in nice. i found one woman who was set to race nice and who’d already raced kona. i asked her for her impressions post-race, not knowing what she would say. unbeknownst to me another article appeared on our front page, which almost caused me to kill the article i’d developed, because they appeared duplicative. but i published it anyway, because i thought the comments on the article published under my byline were well thought out and well-written. to me, one of the articles slightly favored kona, the other nice.

as to the new thread created, i think that’s an artifact of this new platform and i don’t particularly like it. i think a forum thread auto-generates when you want to comment on a front page article. i would prefer the ability to override that and throw comments into an existing thread, if one exists. either way, i like driving comments to the forum much more than facebook’s comment utility, which we used to use, and which facebook clearly abandoned as a feature.

[devashish_paul]

@Slowman

@juniormint

Do you also have your own Kona and Nice experiences that you would like to share? Because I was actually wondering the very same thing last night about Slowtwitch seemingly promoting NIce. I am neutral and haven’t been to either race as a competitor. I really enjoyed the two write-ups by the women who wrote their race reviews on the other thread and came away feeling Kona was the preferred location overall. I found myself wondering if Slowtwitch has an agenda or vested interest in Nice. Why create a new thread and front page article when that thread already existed?

you cover some ground here but i’ll do my best.

i asked on our reader forum, just prior to nice, whether anyone was racing in nice. i found one woman who was set to race nice and who’d already raced kona. i asked her for her impressions post-race, not knowing what she would say. unbeknownst to me another article appeared on our front page, which almost caused me to kill the article i’d developed, because they appeared duplicative. but i published it anyway, because i thought the comments on the article published under my byline were well thought out and well-written. to me, one of the articles slightly favored kona, the other nice.

as to the new thread created, i think that’s an artifact of this new platform and i don’t particularly like it. i think a forum thread auto-generates when you want to comment on a front page article. i would prefer the ability to override that and throw comments into an existing thread, if one exists. either way, i like driving comments to the forum much more than facebook’s comment utility, which we used to use, and which facebook clearly abandoned as a feature.

Just replying to a general theme on here on if ST has some underlying interest in promoting Nice. Even if ST does, as long as it is clear that it is opinion vs analysis it does not matter.

Having said that Ironman started in Oahu, not Kona, so Kona was not the be all and end all of the sport. @Slowman raced the first time the race moved to Kona, so he was “part of the move happening”.

Also for those around in the mid to late 80’s when Kona did not pay prize money the deepest field was at the Nice triathlon (4k swim, 120km bike, 30km run) and I don’t think we can definitively say what the “default long course distance was” back then, and if 140.6 was just a niche distance for freaks like Dave Scott, or if the real pro field was in Nice that Mark Allen was winning. It seems Mark had to go win Kona and defeat Dave to shut everyone up, BUT now we’re stuck with 140.6 vs 4/120/30 and I would argue that 4/120/30 would have been a much better distance for the sustainability of this sport (ex for women now don’t ride as fast men KQers or for MOP age groupers who don’t go as fast at KQers of any gender, 4/120/30 is just more race-able.

But anyway, we are stuck with 140.6 and with the desire of many of us to have a women’s only race day (including execs at Ironman and women at large) we as a sport have to find a solution.

I have raced both Nice (regular race) and Kona and always said Nice is a better venue overall. That’s my opinion vote.

What about St. George…can an “easier” course" be drawn out there? Seems like they can host a 2 event weekend. Could Frankfurt do it? I think Penticton or Tremblant could too (if it is once every 4 years).