So I had nothing better to do today so I had a little sneak peek at the results of “the other big Triathlon” that so many people are just aching to get the chance to do. (‘cause you know, there are other races in “the sport of triathlon” other than Ironman) The race that sells out in literally minutes. This one though, doesn’t need any qualification and anyone can enter regardless of gender or perceived bias and just look what I found. In an event where the only requirement to enter is a computer with super fast WiFi connection the numbers might suggest that, just like in Ironman,the dudes seem far more interested in going long than the ladies.
Male finishers:2768
Female finishers:634
Juuuuust sayin’
DATEV Challenge Roth | 2024
DATEV Challenge Roth | 2024
I think everyone here is aware that women’s participation is lower than men’s participation.
Again, just because there’s more filler in the men’s side, doesn’t mean that male age groups are more deserving of a WC birth. If they’re more competitive or that men’s groups tend to have better results on an age/gender grade, then that’s a different argument.
The narrative that keeps being thrown around is that the rules around Ironman Hawaii qualification somehow represent a gender bias across the entire “sport of triathlon” and that women are being turned away from “the sport of triathlon” because they can’t qualify for Kona.
I will keep pushing back against the narrative that Ironman is somehow now “the sport of triathlon”
That’s a fair point. Kona participation isn’t a barrier - there are lots of those which aren’t related at all to Ironman or Challenge group.
But what it could be is a method to grow and develop the sport. Maybe not even the additional slots - I’d wager that the women’s only day is probably where they real gold is, though the trick is sustaining it over the long term.
Anyway, my point was (and still is) that we define WC allocation in terms of participation numbers, rather than sporting criteria. The end result may be the same (male AGs are arguably more competitive so it might be a wash anyway, however you define it), but what we are subtly saying to the 2nd place in F45 is that their athletic achievements don’t matter because their age group isn’t as full as M45. Now, the last Kona slot may or may not be more deserving in M45, but so long as we’re giving them away due to participating numbers, we’re evaluating the wrong thing.
I have already stated that I don’t really care about the age group race day BUT I do love watching the Pro’s race and I worry about the Pro womens race in Kona next year. We have been told that there will be a dedicated coverage for both male and female Pro’s but I don’t have enough faith in Ironman to believe that they will pull it off. By the very nature of competition people praise the one who crosses the line first and on race day the male winner does and the female winner is an afterthought, finishing among the slow Pro men and sometimes the fast age group men.That isn’t really good enough.
Look back at Texas and imagine how much better Kat’s win would have been covered if the women had raced alone. The drama and magnitude of her epic race was lost by having that awesome men’s race up front. I don’t think we can have both races covered well by the producers at Ironman. I hope they prove me wrong.
For the age group women in general,Ironman have in fact tried to support them and they have tried to develop womens participation. I mean they bought the most successful womens only triathlon series in the world and rebranded it as the Iron Girl Series but what happened? Where did it go? Was it not supported by the athletes and was cancelled? Haven’t really heard anything about it for years. The Danskin Series peaked at 20,000 women racing in the USA one year. That was epic! What happened?
Ok, sure. But if we reallocate to an even M/W split aren’t we telling the 3rd place M55 that his athletic achievements don’t matter because he’s a man?
Both groups think they “deserve” to go to WC
Just felt like reposting this statement.
I am in the same boat as you. The pro women’s race coverage will be “lost” in the noise in between what is going on in the men’s race and the collective mindshare of fans in terms of what is happening in the front of the event (and that mean’s men are first to Kailua Pier, first up Palani, first Kawaihai, first to Hawi, first back to Waikoloa, first to T2, first done Alii drive, first back up Palani, first into and out of energy lab…and so it goes) and cameras not being where they need to be between the two fields to cover when the top women reach those points in the race.
The women’s podium race arrives at all the key landmarks “after the fact” so it gets “after the fact” mindshare even if the coverage is balanced (it will be hard for it to be).
You are right that age group women largely don’t take up Ironman racing. Simple societal barriers like doing a 200km ride solo in the middle of nowhere, or doing a 6 am solo open water swim are not options for MOST women. Getting to the start of IM oriented workouts is hard enough if you are a male, if you are a woman, there are all kinds of societal barriers that makes it tougher. So coming back to the original topic, I like the concept of slots being allocated based on front of race for both men and women, not back of race participation.
Not an open water swim, but the times I’ve gone to our morning Masters Swim sessions is been 6 women too 3 guys. I’ve also noticed the kids (all ages) swim teams are mostly girls, i would say 20 girls to 10 guys at each practice with different levels practicing at the same time.
I’m not suggesting (here*) that there should be an even split, only that we should be assessing WC slots in light of performance, rather than participation. If M55 goes down to the wire and has lots of high calibre performances (age/gender graded, however defined), then give them more slots.
*I do think that for the health of the sport, the ideal is even slots by gender. Though this may be too long a time horizon and too large a burden for a for profit company to shoulder on its own. But that’s another topic.
Maybe one of the solutions is to start the women first, and give them an appropriate head start, such that the first across the line is the one with the better performance.
e.g. if the analytics predict 7:40 for the men and 8:30 for the women, give them a 50 min head start. First across the line gets all the accolades. Then adjust the starting margin each year until you get 50/50 who finishes first.
Plus, this gives women the lead for most of the day and therefore their share of the coverage. Any conflicts between the front of the men’s race and the back of women’s race on the bike are going to be from km 150 onward when its typically broken up anyway.
ETA - this also solves the issue of conflicts between the AG men and women’s race
I’d be all in on that scenario and start the women 30minutes before the men and then the age groupers another 15 minutes later. The back markers will finish after midnight but at that stage it really isn’t such an issue.
The cool thing about your suggestion is that the Pro men and women would end up “racing together” for the first time as the men slowly catch up and start to mix it with the women. That would be very cool to see as it would be just the Pro’s out there at that time. Knowing how well all the pro’s get on and how they support each other during the year, it would be very cool to see the how they all interact with each other. I think that would be very good for the sport and make for a great show.
Yes. That’s the issue. Wanting change and wanting it now over an issue that Tamara rightly pointed out in her article will take 30 years* is a recipe for misallocation of resources that will lead to Ironmans (continued?) decline.
- And let’s point out that 30 years is leap of faith. It’s not like there are any signs women’s initiatives are akin to a forest that grows slowly year after year and just takes time. What people are asking IM to do is literally place an expensive bet on a demographic that time and again doesn’t show up in significant numbers.
There are two arguments to be made here:
Women need more representation at Kona in fairness because it’s where the best of the best race.
And
Awarding more female slots to Kona will gradually increase the number of women who do LC triathlon.
The first one is a value judgement. The second one is a leap of faith based on faulty assumptions.
The first argument is a reasonable argument to make for the pros, because they truly are the best of the best.
The age groupers are a marketing demographic. Since there aren’t a lot of customers in the female long course marketing demographic, it’s a as much a misallocation of resources to funnel equal effort into attracting that small pool of customers. And make no mistake, chasing a Kona slot is an important goal Ironman allocates resources towards in their acquisition strategy.
That said, women in triathlon are still an important demographic. If none showed up at every race, it would hurt the bottom line, likely make IM unprofitable. So equally for PR and marketing purposes they need to make the women see their value to the organization.
I mentioned this in another thread, however, we have the issue of the cut off time for older athletes.
My suggestion is women pro 6:25am, older age grouper 60+ both genders mass start at 6:45, pro men at 7:05 am, rest of age groups starting at 7:10 onwards. There may be a trickle of older age groupers who are coming in at 7:55 am (1:10) when the pro men finish, but that should not be a big deal. 40 min head start should mean top men and women converge coming out of energy lab. But largely pro men will pass all the 60+ age groupers in the water. You could start the older age groupers a bit later so none get to T1 before the pros
Am I the only one who thinks the current slot system is fine, and that most of the proposals here are strictly worse (full of logical fallacies, ageism, sexism, and unnecessary complexity)?
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For a “competition-based” qualification scheme, I think the current system is the most equitable way to do it. We get as close as practically possible, given a discrete and fixed total slot allocation, to “finish in the top X% of your AG to get a spot”.
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A “standard-based” scheme (ala Boston) could also be equitable and fair. The main downsides here are 1) figuring out how to set fair standards across all races + AGs and 2) you don’t find out if you REALLY made it until the end of the season when Ironman tallies up how many folks hit the standard and whether they actually have space for all of them in Kona. But yeah, I think that’s also a fair way to do it.
What’s absolutely NOT fair or equitable is a competition-based system with cross-gender or cross-AG “overall top-N” reserved slots, which seems to be a popular idea here. Any system that awards slots based on overall cross-AG top-N is inherently ageist, and unfairly devalues the accomplishments of older athletes. This is no different that reserving slots for a cross-gender top-N, which I think everyone recognizes would be unfair to women.
It’s no less unfortunate when a hard-working “elite” 65 year old delivers an incredible performance but gets 2nd and misses Kona due to small AG, than when a hard-working “elite” 30 year old woman delivers an incredible performance but gets 2nd and misses Kona due to small AG. To say otherwise is to assert that the accomplishments of 65 year old “elites” are simply less valuable than those of 30 year olds. This flies in the face of the whole concept of gender-segregated, AG-segregated competition pools.
Practically speaking, a small number like top-5 is also a bit unfair to men, since it’s unlikely to actually change anything for them – doubtful that any male AG will have more finishers in the male OA top 5 than it already has proportional slots. This will shake out in practice to just be extra, beyond-proportional slots for women. This aspect could, I suppose, be addressed by making N larger and/or making each gender’s top-N proportional based on participation (instead of 10 slots = 5 M/5 F, perhaps 10 slots = 8 M/2 F). The bigger N gets, though, the worse the older AGs are disadvantaged.
whether or not you get [a slot] is based on how many other people slower than you decided to do an Ironman that day.
What you have conveniently left out is that it’s also based on how many people faster than you decided to do an Ironman that day. And generally if one of those cohorts grows or shrinks, so does the other. You can’t just invent a universe where you scale up the AG, but, like, only slow people please. The narrative of “I got 2nd, but my AG is only 20 people so I missed the 1 Kona slot. If only it were 40 people I would have gotten the 2nd slot. So unfair! It’s not my fault Ironman didn’t sell 20 more registrations!” is a fallacy. If 40 people turned out, yes there would be 2 slots, but that same athlete now likely would have finished 3rd. Or 4th. Or sure, maybe still 2nd! There’s no way to know. Let’s not pretend that anyone who “just missed” in a small AG would have necessarily fared any better in a larger AG. Or that the difference between a small and large AG is just more slow people.
what we are subtly saying to the 2nd place in F45 is that their athletic achievements don’t matter because their age group isn’t as full as M45
Nobody is saying that. The 2nd place F45 failed to prove that they are top X% amongst the day’s 45F athletes, that’s all the system is saying. Everyone is held to the same standard – prove you are top X% amongst your AG peers racing today, and you get a slot. It’s no harder to get a slot by winning a 20 person AG than by getting top 5 in a 100 person AG.
No, you’re not.
There’s some hints that that the bell curve doesn’t equally hold for both genders.
There’s a petition out there that shows the female AGs actually come within a higher % of the winner’s time vs the male age groups - suggesting that women’s Age groups are just as competitive as the mens, and that what’s missing is the slower end of the field.
I kind of buy into what you are saying, so I just went and looked at my last two races.
Oct 27th 2024, I finished 7th in 55-59 at IM70.3 Morocco in 5:29. If I was racing in 60-64 on the same day I finish 3rd. There were 35 athletes in 55-59 and 15 in 60-64
fast forward
Mar 16, 2025 Ironman 70.3 Puerto Rico. I was proably in slightly worse biking and running shape coming off the winter, but close enough
3rd in 60-64, time of 5:30, 28 finishers
The same time gets me 11th in 55-59 where there were 49 finishers
Of course I was the oldest person in 55-59 last year actually racing in that division and this year, if you insert me into 55-59 I am even older, but size of field should make a difference at the top end. Less finishers means less fast people to go against near the front.
what’s missing is the slower end of the field.
The chart literally shows the opposite. It shows that, relative to the men’s distribution, more women finish close to “slowest”. i.e. the slower end of the field is a bigger chunk of the overall women’s field than is the case for men.
It does also show the same phenomenon at the fast end. i.e. more women finish close to the women’s top time, relative to men finishing close to the men’s top time. Effectively, it shows that the middle is smaller and the tails are fatter in the women’s distribution. This does not scream “let’s give women more slots” to me.
But I fundamentally disagree with the idea of changing the number of slots awarded based on the distribution of finish times anyways. Unnecessary complexity, opportunity for collusion, even more wildcards that have nothing to do with an athlete’s individual performance.
It’s crazy that anyone who can’t handle the uncertainty introduced by the wildcard of “who else, and how many, showed up today in my AG”, thinks it would be an improvement to inject more uncertainty that now spans all age groups. Whether or not you as a 35 year old 10h finisher get a slot now depends on the details of how the top 3 folks in the 70-75 AG finish, 5+ hours later? Praying your AG doesn’t contain an outlier athlete? No thanks. I don’t see why these quirks should be considered any more acceptable than the quirks of the current system.