From the article, " Mayor-elect Dr. Kimo Alameda ran on a platform that included improving connectivity on the Big Island with expanded lanes on the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway"
I wonder the time frames on this. It is likely just a false hope to start digging up lava fields in the short term to widen the road with all the possible environmental and historical interest groups involved.
I wouldn’t be surprised if what we actually saw was the shoulder getting absorbed into a new lanes which would make biking even more difficult on that road.
Although there is billions of federal money out there for bike lanes and multiple use development, so perhaps they’ll be able to chase some of that to help pay for widening the road in areas where there’s no shoulder.
I don’t disagree but the industry folks are already having to make decisions about Nice/Kona and they are placing their travel expense money in Kona more than Nice. yes it’s a more expensive proposition then one day in Kona but if participation numbers are 2500 each race it may be more worth their while. Maybe.
On the expo stuff, Roth has the best Expo in triathlon from what I understand. The is no reason an Expo in Nice can’t outstrip anything in Kona. That just takes a bit of a snowball effect, but first step may be to have the “ironman partners” area plus the “everyone else from the local sport industry area” at Nice. It shouldn’t be that hard to have an amazing expo in Nice (or anywhere in Europe) if you build it. Right now that “trade show” has not been intentionally built out and like any trade event it takes some time to build out some momentum but if you don’t invite vendors to your trade event, it never becomes part of their plan. There are vendors who have Kona already part of their plan and they are not going to invest in a second event. What is needed is marketing the trade event in Europe to a completely different set of vendors, and there is no shortage of industry people in Europe to pull in. Targeting the same set of vendors to do two events is hard given travel budget and time away from doing other work in a short time span, so it needs to be another group to make it successful
Exactly. Doing a multi-year experiment to see if a rotating WC can eventually capture participants and vendors is something none of the parties involved can afford.
That’s fair. I speak directly with a major US based endemic triathlon brand on a frequent basis and their thoughts on this topic as communicated to me drive my opinion. Extra points if you can guess who.
well if they do it like slowtwich and force the people to migrate away form kona people will .
had ST asked on which platform to be it would have almost certainly been the old one .
they did not ask and most people followed after some kicking and screaming
@Yutaka_Sonik not sure if you were replying to me, but my point was that Roth has a great expo from what I hear and that’s largely populated by European companies, so no reason this can’t happen at Nice (or elsewhere in Europe).
In any case @Bryancd won’t answer my straight up question on his experience racing outside of the USA and sampling the sentiment of racers around the world. I think his samples are all US based and to date even the new CEO of Ironman barely has seen what is going on outside US racing. He should get around (I believe he was at Nice) and I assume he will be at 70.3 Worlds in NZ and can start getting a better feel for the overall global racing.
Thanks for sharing that article. I think the author does a great job of covering all the problems and possibilities. Will be interesting to see what they decide to do.
The slot count in the transcribed FB post is 64. The actual slots allocated for 2025 Nice was 75. So, either the author of the transcription missed some (at least 1 reply stated the slot he received was not noted) or there may indeed have been a handful slots opened up to anyone present who finished the race that were not taken. FYI- Florida also had 75 and IMAZ will have 70. If you want to see the official 2025 Slot allocation, open your IM tracker app. and at the bottom select info, then select 2025 men’s championship slots. It may take a couple weeks after the race to post, but that is the only official record.
To me this is the ideal move. The county would love the increase in tourism tax from an event that spans that many nights.
There is a fair issue of how easily can they staff the volunteers, but it would be pretty cool if the sport developed a culture of whoever raced the 2nd week, volunteered the first and just alternate genders every year.
The other issue I believe based on listening to PTN is opening the Queen K a bit sooner. One of them mentioned about keeping the marathon in town and do say 3 loops. The run on the Queen K is so boring and no one is out there.
More families and fans can see participants and you would need less aid stations.
Ya, but that section is a pretty iconic part of the course. The loneliness of it all. Maybe the course could start out that’s way and end with the town loops though, although that doesn’t really add a whole lot. A split transition with bikes getting returned down in the energy lab and a run back into town of also a possibility.
You’re probably right that the vibe of the run would make the change better, but it just seems like making it all more fun somehow undermines the misery of it!
