Points system for IM World Championship

Triathlon Forum
1

It seems to me that the IM World Championships in Hawaii is always the same. Same tactics and the same “type” of racer winning. And the racers that do win focus just on that race. It is almost not a race anymore, more of a best marathoner wins senario.

I think it should be changed. Lets make a points system based on the whole IM season. That way the person who puts in the most time and energy (guys like Lothar) will get the World Championship Title. The more well rounded athlete will win the championship. Or lets change the venue from year to year. Different IM’s will host the event each year at different times. I think we would see different champions from year to year.

What do you think…??

2

What you are talking about is an Ironman World Cup of sorts. Some years back the WTC ran an Ironman World Series, but you ended up with guys like Glah, Ray Browning, Tinley and others banging off 5 Ironmans or so to accumulate points.

How bout something like this:

World Championship Hawaii 100,90,80,70, 60 pts etc etc

Regional “Championships” (Germany, New Zealand, Austalia, Roth, perhaps LP ?) 70, 65, 60, 55, 50,45,40,

Majors: (All Ironman NA races, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Austria, Switzerland, Sater): 30, 28, 26, 24, 22 …

Minors: Almere, Esprit, Blue Devil, Ultramax etc 10,9,8,7,6,5…

Take your best three races and add up the points. Reward the guys who go to bat where all the competition is and don’t reward the Cherry Pick events where it is much easier to win.

Dev

3

How about let’s not.
All Tinley, Browning, et al, got out of the Ironman World Series was a few extra bucks and severly tattered immune systems.
Everybody knows when Ironman is. Everybody knows what it will take to win. The winner is the best prepared.
Period.
b

4

In response to Bobo, I meant to add: best 3 races with respect to point totals. This takes care of the “chasing races” scenario…

Or better yet, “first three races in a given calendar year”. That way, any more races than 4 do not count.

5

I agree with Bobo, there doesn’t have to be a points system. The Ironman is not a best Marathoner wins scenario (at least in my opinion). If you have a 1:5 hr swim or a 5.5 hr bike, you’re not going to win. The person that wins is the one with the lowest accumulated time, which is the person that is in contention and comes off the bike with the energy to run a good Marathon. A 2:40 marathon is not all that hard to run in itself and I would guess that all of the top men and women could run a marathon in that time. The difference is that in an ironman you are already 114 miles into the race when you start, so it’s what you have in the tank that counts. Maybe some of the bike specialists would be more competive if they didn’t burn it up on the bike and had some more gas for the run.

6

A well known coach once suggested the following format for the Olympic Games Triathlon. I’m not going to mention his / her name in case it kicks off another million posts like it did on another forum. Anyway, I read this in a copy of British Tri. magazine ‘220’ in the early 1990’s. He / she suggested that the Olympic race be a Sprint Distance Tri. (750/20/5) run as a time-trial (competitors et off at 1 minute intervals) on the Friday. Then the top 30 or so would qualify for the ‘Final’ on Sunday. The final would be 4km/120km/30km with the swim taking place in the Olympic Rowing Facility ie. everybody will have their own 2km ‘lane’ to swim in. Therefore…no drafting on the swim and obviously a draft not-legal bike etc. etc. As we know…it never happened. So…when will an Ironman introduce qualifying on the Friday ?

Ross.