The future of the Ironman World Championship

I missed seeing how many were handed out at California although I heard the Nice slots rolled into the “is anyone here” category. If anyone has any more color please opine. Florida is today so it will be interesting to see how enthusiastic women are for Kona and men are for Nice. And then IMAZ is in 2 more weeks, so we can have this thread to take the proverbial pulse.

1 Like

I think we can all make an educated prediction that Nice roll down will go deep. Time will tell!

1 Like

There were 60 slots.

3 Likes

Wow, thank you @woo! That’s great and clearly what I heard was wrong, sure the Nice slots rolled but the worst was 26th in M35-39. That’s a respectful uptake. Surprised W40-44 rolled into the double digits.

How did you get that information?

It was posted on the FB IMCA website from someone who attended the roll down.

2 Likes

Maybe 14 - 22 thought the same as you and didn’t bother going to the meeting

1 Like

Maybe more and more people are starting to get excited about doing a hard race rather than just a hot race…

3 Likes

Maryland was similar as the men’s nice roll downs didn’t go too far

Yea that seems about right for the men’s side. It’s definitely not exact since I took a slot in 8th and it’s shown as 9th. They started to ask if, “if anyone is here that placed 20th-30th and would like to go, come forward” or something like that but I believe every slot was taken.

I didn’t stick around for the women’s roll downs.

1 Like

Those stats aren’t too far off from my recollection of rolldown for men’s Kona '24 at IMTX in April.

I have a friend going to IMFL awards this morning and asked her to report back.

2 Likes

@Bryancd , I guess you had an alterior motive to say no one cares about Nice but enough people from all the way over in California 9 time zones away seem to be willing to take the slot 11 months out and plan to travel a continent and an Ocean away.

That’s what I was trying to explain to you about 70.3 Worlds. If you remove the Kona option, people are interesting in the sport more than just Kona.

Also let’s not forget that a 60 slot race for men is a lot more than say 30 slots in a combined 50 slot race, so for sure expect some rolldowns, having said that, look at home many slots went to 1-2-3

@devashish_paul I had no “alterior motive” and said directly that is was a healthy uptake for both race slots. We have been discussing this topic in various threads and it seemed appropriate to end the 2024 season with these three races and looking at what the overall interest is in both Kona and Nice, my personally opinions not withstanding. Don’t make assumptions about my motivation, I have known you too long and deserve a bit more consideration.

2 Likes

Bryan, knowing this possibly/probably the last WC in Nice, is there no desire to do it just once ?

Somewhat as my Mom raced and won her AG at ITU Worlds there back in the late 80’s! But my family needs some time off from me doing the full IM schedule, I’ve been on that train almost 24 months and it’s time for a break. And I need to work on getting even more aero with you guys. :slight_smile:

And to be clear, in the abstract I think allowing the women to have their own day is terrific. I’m not clear that it’s economically viable for Ironman to have a rotating IM world Championship that’s not in Kona. I don’t think the company can afford a “loss leader” event where they go into the red in the hope eventually it will be more broadly adopted by their customers. Derue is going to have to make a decision about this in 2025 and it’s going to be heavily influenced by registration numbers.

Blockquote[quote=“Bryancd, post:17, topic:1282591”]
…I think allowing the women to have their own day is terrific. I’m not clear that it’s economically viable for Ironman to have a rotating IM world Championship that’s not in Kona… Derue is going to have to make a decision about this in 2025 and it’s going to be heavily influenced by registration numbers.
[/quote]

Women’s registration #'s have always been lower than men’s. I find it interesting all the men said bring back the women and none of the women have said let’s make it a 1 day race again.

Derue’s best bet is to cut ties with the island cold turkey. As long as it’s there you’re losing the battle against the legacy of the races past. They’ll need to give it 3-5 years doing a 2d race (if possible) or 2 locations to cement that as the standard.

From a financial perspective a 2d race makes more sense.

As long as you keep 1 race in Hawaii it’s going to be a losing battle for the other race to gain traction.

5 Likes

Hey all fair. I think on the balance you have leaned towards the, “Ironman worlds needs to be in Kona 1 day both genders” and I have been in the camp of “2 days same location anywhere in the world because I have been to 70.3 Worlds that does that and I have seen it work”.

I also THINK (and I don’t know for sure) that your racing experience has been exclusively in USA. Once you venture elsewhere, you see how healthy this sport is. I just did Morocco 70.3 and literally all the slots to 70.3 worlds went to the winner plus the next few if there were more slots. The race was packed with Europeans flying 2-3 hrs to race there. It’s not a “drive to event”, so you could see the pull the sport has.

I think Desertdude roughly capture the catch22. As long as Kona is in the 2 year rotation Nice takes longer to get legs in terms of pull.

On the losing money front, I don’t think we have the entire picture. If overall more people are racing the sport across the series and if Nice or Kona (or 70.3 Worlds) lose some money its not the end of the world if the overall corp revenue exceeds incremental costs. I assume the latter is the case, but I don’t know for certain

1 Like

Let’s also remember that for Nice '23 IM had to fill virtually all the slots in basically half the time and Kona '24 half the slots in a longer than usual qualifying period (the calendar made it so that some races gave Kona slots in both their 23 and 24 editions).

For women I suspect IM needs to find ways to improve slot uptake as a lot of them don’t even consider going to the slot allocation, whether that’s Kona or Nice.

This new cycle will probably give a better idea of actual interest.