Let’s be honest, the 2 day event was never about the women. It was disguised as being for women to fix the back log of Kona slots and a money grab.
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@devashish_paul I outlined why I think the baseball analogy is flawed. I also think the 70.3 comparison fails. 70.3 Worlds never developed the now iconic and legendary touch points that are a huge draw for Hawai’i. Ali’i Drive, the hill on Palani, the Energy Lab, the climb and winds of Hawi, Mark and Dave hill. It’s taken decades to establish that meta knowledge in the community. You leave, you lose that and that can never be replaced. It’s why people want that specific experience.
Hopefully they will make change to improve on previous years of a single day/single race.
There are several things they can do.
Something has to give …
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@marcag What would be the top 2 or three things they could do?
the easy one, costs a bit more, but a separate camera crew and split screen at critical moments. Maybe even 2 youtube streams.
the second is longer time between women start time and next waves of AG men. Of course starting older men first would help a bit. It creates other problems, but this is a question of spreading and minimizing the compromises.
I am not sayng I like the 1 day event. I am saying it will happen so let’s figure out how to lessen the pain
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I’m probably forgetting a reason, but why not send the pros - both men and women - straight up the Queen K instead of the little out and back south? Have them finish with that out and back. That would put more space between the women and the AG men.
I don’t remember how long that is so maybe it would only buy a couple minutes of separation. But it’s something, and it doesn’t materially affect the course.
It’s maybe 5 miles total. You can’t make a left on Palani to head into Transition, it blocked off.
Besides the history what’s Kona got going for it, all everyone does is complain about the place, that it’s a boring race, expensive, a run down slum with hostile locals, and if you aren’t genetically gifted for heat and humidity you are toast.
Nice seems like a no brainer, stunning views, plenty of accomodation, welcoming locals, a tough but fair course.
People were reluctant to be guinea pigs for first time at Nice, with each year I reckon it will become more and more in demand and wouldn’t be surprised if it passed Kona in desirability. Like anything, as demand increases demand increases-kind of like a nightclub, if people see its hard to get in the more they want in. They should just get rid of Kona and do women and men at Nice.
Yeah not that helpful then. I think the top AG men are about 35 mins faster on the bike than the top pro women.
Well last wave start was 7:40, I was in it. Pro’s started over an hour and 20min ahead. So out the fast AG men at the end and they will never catch up.
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That’s not entirely fair. They are committed to do things that they believe represents their values with the qualification that it needs to be profitable.
You could just as easily make the argument, so much for women in long distance tri who wanted to have equal access and opportunity as men.
Why can’t that side of the coin be the take away? If the reply is more women take time, well, IM can’t tell it’s investors to just don’t worry about making money, we think it will only take 5 years of loses before we get in the black (which would mean 10 years to equalize). That’s a long term play with more risk than guarantee that suddenly women will turn up equally to the men.
Rather, what NEEDED to happen is the 25% of women who do turn up needed to be taking their slots in disproportionately larger rates than the men for it to ever work. IM gave the women a chance and the women didn’t take it in enough numbers – Assuming the 2day thing is off that is.
If Covid never happened (no cancelled races, no back log of Kona slots), would there still be a 1 day race men and women in Kona today?
I think yes.
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But don’t you think IM has been thinking about this possiblity based on their split 70.3 worlds? Why wouldn’t they want twofer out of IMWC too?
I will admit that at the start of all this upheaval I didn’t care about one day over two but as a spectator I much prefer the women have their own day. The one day format will always highlight the men with the “slower” women being the secondary race. Watching replays of previous years, that just seems to be the way it comes across
Hey @Bryancd at the beginning of this thread I pointed out that it felt like you had an alterior motive which was hoping Nice fails (or less interest in that) in favour of Kona. You said, you had no such agenda. Point accepted.
Someone posted that slot uptake for Nice was healthy in California. The discussion changed to IM losing money at Nice worlds for women. A number of us pointed out that as long as on aggregate the company is making money, it is OK if a championship loses money.
I pointed out location does not matter and people are interested in the places. But you gave nothing to back that up. When IM Canada moved to Whistler, people went. IMNZ moved to Taupo and it worked. IM Hawaii moved from Oahu to Kona and it worked. IM Germany was taken away from Roth and a new one started in Frankfurt, both co exist. IMOz moved from Foster Tuncurry to Port Mac and it’s still going. The Nice long course race changed to IM and it’s still on!!! 70.3 World’s keeps moving around the world and it keeps selling out.
The common theme here just like a baseball franchise moving is people care about the sport more than where it is going on.
I said people get emotionally tied to a stock instead of figuring out how to grow their porfolio and in your last post you pointed out a number of landmarks on the Kona course that you appear to be emotionally tied to, but the sport is going on all over the word decoupled from those landmarks in Kona.
What matters is Mark and Dave going head to head at 2:40 vs 2:42 pace in 1989. If the race rotates to South Africa, it won’t take away anything (as it turns out Frodeno and Brownlee were going head to head at 1:06 vs 1:08 pace in Port Elizabeth in 2018 and Frodo broke his own body !!!)
Each time an explanation is provided on why it is possible to have the championship outside of Kona, you have come back with anecdotes that appear to be emotionally tied to the venue.
I am countering that the sport is much bigger than Kona centric based on experience racing all over the world AND Kona. But as you all are saying, this may be academic if it turns into a mixed gender Kona again.
For Ironman that may be thinking smaller than bigger.
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Quite frankly this is very wrong. The Championship is the one time for them to have a cash cow. The race that puts them into the black. Maybe a sponsor of the organization could say it’s ok “losing” money on a race for promotional value purposes.
But Ironman almost certainly has it in their plan to cancel races if they don’t make money.
If they were piggy backing onto the setup costs of a race in the same location they can surely be ok with fewer women, but not putting on the entire dedicated race with so few women interested in showing up.
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I’ve raced both last 2 years, personally I think Nice is the far cheaper, better bike course better swim logstically easier for organiser option. I also like my blackberry phone and rim brakes 
The market chooses, and right now the market wants Kona, not enough wants Nice and a limited number of women are willing to go to race alone in Kona which collides with the 2 day increased slots available opportunity.
For what it’s worth plenty of partner tri women in Kona and in Nice I talked to want it back to 1 location (2 days ok, but not 2 locations) as families struggle to handle the logistics of travelling 2 places halfway around the world for both partners to race… obviously non representative of all women but a sizeable cohort for AG.
So only question is how to make it work - I think @marcar is onto something: there can be some ways to better improve 1 day so both genders get their moment, in my view AG women getting swallowed up by the men is no different than the 35 year old men or women rolling straight through the older divisions in Kona, WC 70.3, Nice etc - it’s part of the game. So we really are talking about the women pros. Who incidentally don’t seem to be clamoring for a separate day in Roth or other iconic events, but just have to accept an inferior coverage, IM could change the game and give them a better coverage and show…so idea:
- women pros start 6.25 then physically challenged, then a big gap with 45 or 60min gap to the men and then everyone else is condensed in after that; this gives the female pros enough time to be back into town on the bike where drafting doesn’t affect them, also introduces an element of excitement as to whether the top women will get caught or not (at 60min I’m guessing not); for the women they are the only ones on course for the swim and the only ones on the bike for the first 45min or so big focus; no AG males will catch the female leaders and they will be mostly in the lead of the race all day; each gender has part of the lead during the day potentially
- semi mass start can go back to how it was before with bigger group starts (e.g. all men 50-59 and women 25-34 all start together) so there is less lag between the starts; can probably cluster simliar pace athletes together so it isn’t by gender as much, it is mixed (even in 2022 there were men racing on what was supposedly the womens day in Kona and no one seems to mind that); safer than a single mass start but a bit more hectic, as it should be at this level
- because the start times get delayed a bit, just cut the cut off back; its 15 hours for all AG under 60, and 16 hours for the ones over 60 or something like that, so the total time ends up the same everyone off the course as happens now; if it’s all on one day the finish times for most will be quicker anyhow, as it will go back to needing around 10 hours or lower to qualify for men, 11 hours of lower for women other than the older AG or phsyically challenged
- Nice IMHO is ideal to reposition as a AWA event, not an alternative to Kona but rather a by qualification race priced lower and held every 2 years in June or July (meaning can race both Nice and Kona in a season) 2 genders 2 days for all world athletes, and pros as well the big show but spaced far enough away so Ironman can do a double cash grab, we still get the 2 days big show, women have their own day, Nice not a replacement for Kona. Allows some pros who might not shine in Nice to have their day, can see Vino And Jalabert smashing their AG and we can all eat all the croissants and Pan au chocolat as well as Acai and poke bowls that our little cake holes can tolerate.
unlike 70.3 I think a full IM and the training to qualify etc around it is hard enough that running it around the world probably isn’t practical, maybe a few venues might work eg st George etc, but most won’t for 2 days and there’s just a smaller pool of potential competitors; large parts of the world e.g. where I’m from there isn’t a full IM here in country or nearby to race, to be able to qualify is itself a big effort, a 70.3 there are many over the season nearby.
I’d prefer IM actually had open consultation for what happens 2026 onwards; I think the loud voices on FB (“all the women want their own day”“men ruin the women’s event in Kona” “women don’t want to race Nice” “slots are worthless no one will want to go to any WC now that everyone can qualify”) would be balanced out with more meaningful data points.
Just my limited view.
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In 2019, they made changes to the start times and moved to wave starts. 25 min separated between FPRO and the first male AG wave. Having been in the front of that AG race, I can tell you we did not negatively impact the female pro race.
We only had 1 year of these changes after the disaster of 2018. So we never got to fully realize the benefits of moving to wave starts for a 1 day race or find additional ways to improve it after the fact. But it was a huge step in the right direction.
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@devashish_paul Again, I’m saying the baseball analogy fails as it’s not a participation sport, it’s a spectator sport. As such of course it’s location will be less relevant. If we are debating triathlon as a spectator revenue driven sport, then I would agree the location may not matter. But it’s not, and just like people who golf want to play on the courses of Augusta or St. Andrews or runners who want to do Boston or New York, the location and course ARE what matters most to them, that’s the experience they are paying for. Sure you can move qualifying Ironman races all over the place but they all have one thing in common, they are opportunities to earn spots to race in Kona. So outside of the “just want to finish an IM and get the tat” cohort, those races are a means to an end, and that’s going to Hawaii.
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Here is what you are missing. Our collective memories are short. We’re only tied into all the course/destination aspects due to recent memory.
Let me explain. IMC Penticton used to always sell out instantly. Then it moved away…then it came back. Roughly the coming back was several years later. By then all the previous racers there who loved it and kept telling people all about it, moved on to new challenges. By the time IMC came back to Penticton, not many cared any more.
Next year, IMC moves to Ottawa where I live. Guess what…it sold out already. Penticton could not get a sellout. Penticton is kind of isolate and hard “enough” to get to may explain some of that.
If IM leaves Kona (or any town), in not that long, people don’t care anymore. They are more interested in the sport than where they do it. If not no one would enter any of the other races around the world in half and full distance that are not Kona and the half distance world series would be uninteresting because it is all over the world with no road to Kona. Yet people enter.
For sure if you keep a championship race in Kona every two years people will vote to go do the old thing. If you cut it off, some die hards will quit the sport “because its not the same”, others will fill the gap because they want to do the sport regardless of Kona or somewhere else.
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