I have heard that there will be no men pro race at IMLP and no woman pro race at IMCA… Is that true? Why in the world would they do that???
I really doubt that. What was your source? Isn’t LP the USA Ironman championships?
D.
My coach told me that yesterday… he is pro and wanted to race IMLP
Realistically, they need to have a rolling “fast” Ironman course, mid year to attract the top pros to a US National Ironman Championship. Something along the lines of Frankfurt, Roth or Klagenfurt. They will never get a good deep pro men’s field at the US Natl Ironman Championships, until the men can bang off times close to 8 hours and also not significantly trash their legs before Hawaii. No won has ever won LP and finished on the podium in Kona in the same year. Not Hellriegel, Cam Widoff, not Steve Larsen, not Lessing. On the women’s side, the trend was finally broken by Heather fuhr with second at LP and second at Kona this year.
LP is a great age grouper race, but it will never attract a deep tier 1 pro field like Frankfurt or Roth so it will never be a really good championship race.
And WHY would they do that??? It doesn’t make sense to me and takes the fun away…
Sounds like that might be a good idea - would certainly make the race more competitive, which would no doubt lead to faster times.
so LP will be the place to be for top AGs !
ever won an Mdot race?
uli
i think that north american ironman fields have become so weak at the pro level, that some consolidation makes sense. you concentrate the purse, offering more money at the top as well as paying ten deep instead of five, and hopefully you attract a much stronger field. plus, i believe the plan is for a separate start, focusing more attention on just the women’s (or men’s) race.
Bascially because they have so many IMs now the pro field has gotten diluted both in quantity and quality, so this is an attempt to attract a larger pro field to those races, and make it more competitive.
Joel
This could also be viewed as WTC’s first step in creating non-Kona qualifying Ironman races. I realize these races are IMNA-run, but please don’t tell me that they act completely autonomously.
But honestly, this is silly. Part of the appeal of a IMNA event is the fact that you will see some pros during the week and actually get to measure yourself against their results. (hey - I only finished three weeks behind Lessing at IMLP this year). So who wins IMLP next year? Joe Bonness? Heather Fuhr?
Professional Prize money for 2005 Ironman North America events announced
By: Shane Facteau November 30, 2004
BOULDER, Colo.-Ironman North America has announced the pro prize purses for the eight Ironman North America events taking place in 2005. A total of $390,000 in prize money will be awarded at 2005 Ironman North America events.
The major change will be at Ironman USA Coeur d’Alene and Ironman USA Lake Placid, which will serve as men’s only professional and women’s only professional races respectively in 2005.
There will be a $50,000 pro prize purse for professional men at the 2005 Ironman USA Coeur d’Alene triathlon and a $50,000 women’s prize purse at the 2005 Ironman USA Lake Placid triathlon.
“We are trying to foster competition at our events and with the high number of additional Ironman events around the world in 2005, we thought we would try to build one pro race specifically for men and one for women,” said Ironman North America President Graham Fraser. “This is something we have wanted to try for a while and we will try it in 2005.”
Other changes include:
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Additional prize money at the California Half-Ironman, Florida Half-Ironman at WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort and Ironman Wisconsin -
The addition of Ironman Arizona with a $75,000 pro prize purse -
The deepening of the prize field from five places to eight or ten places at all events except Ironman Florida, where placing will remain five deep for both men and women.
For more information on Ironman North America events, log onto www.ironmannorthamerica.com
Prize money for 2005 Ironman North America events
California Half Ironman
Oceanside, Calif.
March 19, 2005
$30,000 pro prize purse (men and women)
1st-$5,000
2nd-$3,000
3rd-$2,000
4th-$1,500
5th-$1,250
6th-$1,000
7th-$750
8th-$500
Ironman Arizona
Tempe, Ariz.
April 9, 2005
$75,000 pro prize purse (men and women)
1st-$12,000
2nd-$8,000
3rd-$5,500
4th-$4,000
5th-$3,500
6th-$2,000
7th-$1,500
8th-$1,000
Florida Half Ironman at WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort
May 22, 2005
$30,000 pro prize purse (men and women)
1st-$5,000
2nd-$3,000
3rd-$2,000
4th-$1,500
5th-$1,250
6th-$1,000
7th-$750
8th-$500
Ironman USA Coeur d’Alene
June 26, 2005
$50,000 MEN’S pro prize purse (no women’s professional division)
1st -$14,000
2nd-$9,000
3rd-$7,500
4th-$6,000
5th-$5,000
6th-$3,500
7th-$2,000
8th-$1,500
9th-$1,000
10th-$500
Ironman USA Lake Placid
July 24, 2005
$50,000 WOMEN’S pro prize purse (no men’s professional division)
1st -$14,000
2nd-$9,000
3rd-$7,500
4th-$6,000
5th-$5,000
6th-$3,500
7th-$2,000
8th-$1,500
9th-$1,000
10th-$500
Subaru Ironman Canada
August 28, 2005
$75,000 pro prize purse (Cdn. dollars) (both men and women)
1st-$12,000
2nd-$8,000
3rd-$5,500
4th-$4,000
5th-$3,500
6th-$2,000
7th-$1,500
8th-$1,000
Ironman Wisconsin
September 11, 2005
$30,000 pro prize purse (men and women)
1st-$5,000
2nd-$3,000
3rd-$2,000
4th-$1,500
5th-$1,250
6th-$1,000
7th-$750
8th-$500
Ironman Florida Triathlon
November 5, 2005
$50,000 pro prize purse (men and women)
1st-$10,000
2nd-$6,000
3rd-$4,000
4th-$3,000
5th-$2,000
I know this has been mentioned before, but I’m really liking the way that triathlon gives out equal prize money to men and women. Very unusual and it should be applauded.
The change to no male pros at IMLP seemed to be an odd move when I first heard about it, but I think it makes more sense as I read these posts. It definitely makes sense to increase the competition and deepen the fields at these races. It’ll be pretty cool to see more of the top pros head to head at a race other than at Kona.
D.
Yes, very nice they give out equal prize money. In LTF’s case, the women are making more! ;o)
Although, I’d respectfully disagree about the changes. Most important, the prize money is an embarrasing low considering the DEEP pockets of WTC and IMNA. LTF can offer a deeper field, more money, with less “prestige”. Heck…get the folks at LTF to put on an Iron Distance race and we’ll have a winner! The best part is that Bahram would simply increase his prize money if WTC ever up’d Kona cash.
I see it’s the only way IMNA can “stack” the races to get either more airtime or sell more sponsors. There doesn’t appear to be much of an issue with the “favorites” to get into Kona…which probably prompted the change.
Net result, I don’t see anything changing other than not being able to race next to your favorite racers at certain events…which is part of the reason why I race IMNA events to begin with…
It sounds like you think the prize money isn’t big enough rather than the change with CDA being the national championships and no male pros at IMLP. I agree that the prize money seems pretty small. I never knew what the pros made before and I can now understand why everyone says how tough it is to make money in this sport. If they could up the prize money and increase the pro field, then that would produce some really great races.
D.
first of all: thumbs up for IMNA for trying to put up more interesting races
BUT the way they want to achieve that goal won’t work imho:
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age group athletes will win an Ironman next year and their name will stand next in line to Hellriegel, Larsen, Lessing (great for the athlete, but bad for the sport because the normal person not connected to triathlon will believe that the winner actually is one of the best athletes out there) - it just fires up the speed in which “ironman winner” becomes even more meaningless than nowadays already
-
why should a pro race in CdA instead of France or Austria ? he has a tougher competition, it’s harder to win prize money and after the race nobody cares if you only placed 10th because of the tough competiton (hey, it’s not hawaii, it’s coeur d’alene, the only IMNA race nobody wanted to sign up quickly), if you could place 5th or better somewhere else
what sounds better? 5th at IM France or 10th at IM CdA ? if you try to attract sponsors a 5th place sounds way better
but IMNA will probably know what they are doing
There are several reasons that I see for moving IMCDA to a men’s championship and IMLP to a women’s championship. Several people have already mentioned that the IM races have become dilute (which I agree with) and that this will help to concentrate the field. This will also allow for more attention to be focused on the “Championship”. Another reason, yet to be mentioned here, is simple economics. To provide the prize purse at a new IM race this year (IM AZ) the prize money was redistributed from the other races. I may be mistaken but in 2004 prize money was as follows:
IMLP $100K, IMCDA $50K Total Purse $150
(the past two years IMLP was a Championship race with double the purse)
2005 Prize money
IMLP & IMCDA $50K each, IMAZ $75K Total Purse $175K
So essentially a new Ironman race has been added and the impact on the overall payout is only $25K.
I personally think it is a good move on the part of IMNA to help strengthen the field at races and additionally the idea of paying out 8 or 10 places deep instead of 5 is very helpful to athletes looking in to recoup the costs of racing.
Shouldn’t the IMAZ prize purse come from the $$ generated by the event. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they sell 2000+ spots at $400 a pop for IMAZ? that $800,000 should cover a $75,000 prize purse shouldn’t it… Looks like IMNA is actually SAVING money now with more coming in and less going out.
I agree with some of the above posters that if the WTC were paying deeper into the pro ranks they would definately get more pros to the races. I don’t know how deep the lifetime fitness pays but I think if WTC wanted to make the races more exciting they should offer more incentive (i.e. $$) for the top pros.
Let’s look at the flip side. Perhaps, having no pro field at IMLP for men and IMSPUD for women will increase the depth of competition for the age groupers. The lure of winning an M-dot race might draw out some top men’s amateurs to LP who weren’t initially planning on this race.
The dilution effect of top athletes we see at the pro ranks also occurs at the amateur levels as well. Unless you have a ton of money and vacation time to travel to all of the IMNA races (and have a superhuman ability to recover like Joe Bonness), the full race schedule makes it next to impossible for folks to toe the line against the best in the country in their age group.
Speaking for myself, I’d rather finish tenth in a super-deep and competitive field rather than win my age group when the top guys are racing somewhere else. Admittedly, this tends to be a bigger problem for those of us in the lower income pre-30 year old age groups.
You could be right about making the AG race more exciting. But now that IMLP is closed to AG signups it doesn’t really open that option up much does it. It seems like this would have been a good thing for WTC to annouce before they opened the sign-ups so that elite AGs could actually make their decisions.
Or maybe they could offer an elite AG signup???
“We are trying to foster competition at our events and with the high number of additional Ironman events around the world in 2005”,
maybe they have realized that they are diluting their poduct. It seems they have less prize money or it doesn’t go as deep at some of the more popular races for the pros, and now is deeper in some of the less pro popular races.