(Moved) Solution to Drafting: For Dan/USAT

Triathlon Forum
1

Cold hard truth for fixing the drafting problem that slow and/or poor people are not going to like:

Bottom line:

You should have to qualify for a major IMNA Ironman at an IMNA sanctioned Half Ironman, to earn the right to pay just $500 for an IMNA Ironman. This creates more Half Ironman races, of which there could be a greater demand, and force all HIMs to have wave starts.

It should be as hard to qualify as it is to qualify for Kona. IE 25-29 Male needs a 9:45-9:50/Top 5-7 for Kona at Ironman Canada, so say 4:30 or top 5 in AG to qualify for an IMNA Ironman.

If you are too slow, but want to go to what you think is “the big show”, pay $1500-$2,000, half of which goes to the Community Fund, which is Tax-Deductible. Raise rates as appropriate per demand.

Works for Kona, why not improve the atmosphere at IMNA Ironman races?

Dan, help me out here.

ISSAQUAH

PS

I compete as a “pro” in adventure racing, and I can tell you that training for and racing in Ironmans is much, much cheaper, and adventure races can’t keep up with the demand (entries). A typical budget for a 4 person team to do an expedition race, like Subaru Primal Quest, is well over $10,000 plus your gear and certifications. Entry alone is near $8,000. Not every team is sponsored. Probalby 10% at a typical large event, with 50-80 teams.

I guarantee IMNA races like Canada, USA, Florida could easily sell their 2,000 slots at $1000 per pop.

This would eliminate the slow people from entering, which would drive them to independent ironman length races, which are a better deal anyway for people who have no shot at qualifiying for Kona. Why sit in a draft with 2100 other people if you’re a 26 year old guy going 11:00 who has no shot at qualifying for Kona? Go to the CaliMan, Great Columbian, UltraMax, Duke, Great Floridian, and have a better experience with the same distance. Read the race reports, people love those races.

Sean Clancy

Issaquah, WA

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3

Better than that, you draft automatic DQ
.

4

What about just feeding everyone prunes the night before?

5

I can appreciate your intent in trying to remedy this drafting problem. However, the criteria you are listing are much too extreme. I make a pretty good living, but there is no way in hell I would be willing to pay $1500-$2000 for an IMNA event. I wouldn’t pay that for a spot in Kona. The out of town travel, the use of paid vacation time, and the incidental expenses (dining, etc.) already make the expenses to participate an IMNA event constraining as is.

In addition, while I agree that there should be something in place which requires the completion of a half ironman distance race to participate in a full event, your “Kona-like” suggested cutoff criteria limits the qualifying field to mainly elite-level athletes, in which you are going to have very little of. This penalizes MOP’ers who are trying to move up the ranks, and who consist a very large portion of the repeat business of these races. It wouldn’t take very long for those under that population like myself to become discontent and no longer wish to participate. I enjoy the experience of the IMNA races, and would like them to remain available to the people.

I think you are attributing the drafting problem to the wrong causes. Yes, the large fields cause for a lot of the bottlenecking which cause packs to bunch up in places. But limiting the races entrants substantially to the upper tier of athletes won’t do a thing to reduce drafting. If anything, you’ll have a larger concentration of athletes trying to win AG awards/Kona slots, who will be tempted to draft due to the higher level of competition. At the other end, you’ll still have the remaining field of the sold out event you believe will still happen with the exorbitant prices, still causing packs to form during the race just due to the sheer numbers.

The unfortunate aspect of the sport is that you have a lot of athletes who are either hyper-competitive and/or have little regard to the integrity of competition. These are the people who swim over other people to steal the faster feet, maul female swimmers 80 lbs. lighter, draft like they’re in the TDF, cut people off in the aids stations, etc. Not to mention the dickhead who pushed the one female pro off the course at IMFL a couple of years ago.

This I believe is the underlying factor which should be addressed, and it is not exclusive to IMNA events. I don’t have all of the answers to this one, but I think the message needs to be put out to emphasize sportsmanship and integrity, and to be more strict on penalties, including suspension from events for blatant violations.

Again, I’m with you there that drafting, as well as dishonest competition is a problem, but the violators are the ones who need to be punished, not MOP’ers or BOP’ers who compete with integrity and who make good livings, but also know where to fiscally draw the line. Also, I don’t think it’s really Slowman’s or USAT’s place to effect IMNA events exclusively.

6

Fees:

IMNA entry fees for Ironman races are already almost $500.

Am I the only one who noticed the fees went from $250 to $450 pretty fast?

Has demand gone down? No. Will it go down a couple years from now when fees are $750,

then $1,000? No. The races will still fill. New races will pop up. Bad ones will go away or move.

Drafting:

The only way to completely eliminate unavoidable drafting is to do a single loop bike course AND wave starts. Period.

Spread them out over 2 hours. It’s dark at midnight, it will be dark at 2am. Same difference.

Without any major changes to the field (as mentioned above), wave starts seem to be a no-brainer.

ISSAQUAH

7

i would like to see wave starts. no doubt it will spread out the field and reduce the bunching up of fields. there’s a couple of things which would have to be contemplated. yes there’s no difference in darkness between 12am and 2am. in several cases there will be a difference in darkness between 5pm and 7pm, so some later waves are going to be penalized by earlier bike cutoffs. IMFL is a more extreme example since it’s after daylight savings time, so it’s dark by 5:30 pm. also, an additional 2 hours could present more of a logistical challenge than people realize. perhaps an experienced race organizer can chime in on this.

i disagree on the view of the IMNA demand. most of the posters here have noticed the drastic increases in fees. yes, the demand is still there, as there’s quite a bit of growth in participation in the sport. however, there’s eventually going to be a limit. a lot of regular participants compete in more than one IMNA event over the course of the year. at a certain point, the races are just going to be too cost prohibitive to do more than one. and of course you’ll have those who are in it only for the short run, so they’ll drop out eventually. my point is that i don’t think that there is an endless supply of willing participants who will pay no matter the cost. who is right? only time will tell. but effect of hypothetically hiking up the fees a grand all of a sudden doesn’t compare to a couple of hundred dollar increase over the course of 2-3 years.

8

What exactly are you proposing is the benefit of raising entry fees?

9

Live within the current rules or don’t play…

No one is forcing you to enter a IMNA event. I hear guys complaining all the time about drafting…but they are usually the SAME ones doing it. I don’t have any problem with an accidental draft or congestion…it’s the blatant wheel sucking (for more than .25 miles in IM) that should be auto DQ.

Ironically, I find MUCH more blatant cheating and total disregard for the rules in Adventure Racing. Talk about stretching…

10

Elitist crap.

11

Rest assured it’ll only take one “Gordon Gecko” esque race organizer to be RIGHTLY sued by the relatives of an athlete that dies in the IM swim due to, as a pathologist puts it, drowning via loss of consciousness due to contusions to the head.

Before they all wake up and smell the coffee regarding the absolute safe limit for a mass starts.

Funding Kona slots ($2,000 a pop I understand) via all round price hikes and larger numbers of entries ain’t no way to endear oneself to the MOP mass majority.

I say if I/we/you want a shot at Kona pay more to ensure a safe number of entrants can be maintained.

12

Elitist crap.

TBG-I agree (even though you are a closet heelstriker). My GF and I paid $1,000 Community Fund Entry for IMFL this year, confident that we will not finish 2499 and 2500. If you raise the entry fees, there will not be any poor-slow people for us to finish ahead of.

14

“It should be as hard to qualify as it is to qualify for Kona. IE 25-29 Male needs a 9:45-9:50/Top 5-7 for Kona at Ironman Canada, so say 4:30 or top 5 in AG to qualify for an IMNA Ironman.”

And honestly, what percentage of athletes can meet this criteria? You know something I don’t? Not everyone out there can swim 25, bike 2:20, and run 1:30. BTW, I swam 32, rode 2:30, and ran 1:47 @ HalfMax in St. Louis (4:56) Something wrong with that?

I’ll never sniff Hawaii, but you know what—I don’t care!

15

“This would eliminate the slow people from entering”

Being one of the slow people - what does this have to do with preventing drafting? You can bet that the reason I am slow(er) is because I won’t draft. I race to challenge myself. It’s not about YOU or anyone else. According to you, this means I shouldn’t be allowed to pay my money and enter the race just like everyone else?

16

I have a hard time believing that it’s us slow(er) cyclists that are causing the drafting problem. My bike time for IMC this year was just under 7 hours and for the vast majority of the race I had no problems ensuring that I wasn’t drafting. Maybe instead of making it harder for the slower people we should make it harder for the 5 - 6 hour bike guys as from what I hear that’s where the drafting problem seems to be.

17

I did Roth in 96 starting in the second wave, 10’ after wave 1. Get to the finish, remove 10’ that’s it…really don’t care if the picture on the finish line is 10’ off. not doing that to show pictures to people…

Exactly. And for those who really want it, create a really wide finish line with five separate finish banners and five separate clocks, each representing a wave. Cost you a couple hundred bucks as an organizer and everybody is happy. It also solves the problem of being stuck behind a guy, his wife, six kids, a stroller and two nannies in the finishing chute. Oh, and his grandparents.

18

Qualifying is a bad idea. Instead of having the swimmers spread out between 50min and 1h20, now all 2000 participants will swim between 50 and 60min.

19

" It also solves the problem of being stuck behind a guy, his wife, six kids, a stroller and two nannies in the finishing chute. Oh, and his grandparents"

LOL…so true

20

I think you’ve posted a solution for the wrong problem. The problem is drafting, correct? As I see it, there are two main reasons that drafting occurs:

  1. Some jerks just have to cheat

  2. Too many people in the same spot on the course at the same time

I believe #2 is the main reason there is so much drafting in Ironman races. This is usually due to multi-looped courses which can, at times, effectively double the number of racers on the course. It is also due to racers of similar speeds starting the race at the exact same time. I don’t believe that an effective solution is to require that all of the racers are very close to one another in ability thus ensuring that the field won’t separate.

The problem is crowding. Three ways to reduce it:

  1. Reduce the size of the field

  2. Only have single-loop courses

  3. Separate racers from the beginning; wave starts

You can reduce the size of the field by raising prices if you like. But I have to admit that it seems IMNA is getting close to finding the magic number for pricing. Last time I checked IMCdA is still open. IWO, they should be selling out all of their races, just not within half an hour of opening registration.

21

You are an idiot. You think having only ‘fast’ athletes out there will eliminate drafting? The added competition of everyone going for a Hawaii spot would increase drafting dramatically.

22

Bwuahahaha! Yes, true, but soooooo poignant.

-Robert