I said it earlier and have nothing to add, it is the way ironman wants it. But the circle jerking here has been entertaining, but it has hit a wall and all the cray ideas have been put forward already…But lets see if someone else can write 7 paragraphs on what they should do next to be successful…
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IMHO that’s not quite what the chart shows, women and men same distribution but women are slower and less spread out since the fastest is say 10hrs slowest is 17 whereas men fastest is say 9 slowest still 17 as both genders use the same cut off, so the distribution has been squeezed making the tails fatter - more women closer to the fastest more women furthest from the fastest and less in the middle.
Would not surprise to see very old AG showing a similar appearance of being more competitive.
I thought this was one of the weaker points made in the analysis, the main take away would be both genders and probably most AG favour a normal distribution and so using % of finishers (proportional) across gender and AG is one way but will not balance up gender AG or ethnicity which might be a long term goal for branding or growth. Branding more likely as I don’t think kona slots drives women customer acquisition through participation that much, it does drive repeat purchases though a lot. For men and women. And women may be higher churn due to these apparent societal difficulties mostly probably kids for those that have kids, so offering more to churning customers might be beneficial since the addicted men will keep coming even u give them a little less as for them they might be more sticky.
So ways to do that might be women only ironman races, bonus slots or slots only women can aim for which is kind of what WFT is doing. But that packaging looks worse for branding than just saying let’s do affirmative action from day 1 and go equal.
I do think one huge opportunity for Ironman might be women’s only ironman 2 or 3 a year non WC with a bunch of slots and pros. Day before or after or same day as a 70.3. No men. No qualification. You want more women in the sport? Give them their own day on top of more equitable slots in Kona and make it for all women not just podium level athletes. Awa Championship no qualification needed. 100 slots to kona proportional by AG with a cut off.big Pro field. Exclusive media coverage. All the works. By not having it a qualification race you might get 1000-2000 women there and stacked next to a 70.3 it logistically could work. New format. Hashtag city
I’ve been following along and have an idea. Some similar thoughts have been mentioned, but maybe not exactly what I was thinking, so here it goes: get rid of roll down, and only guarantee a slot to each age group winner. Use the AWA scoring method for the rest of the slots.
I’ll start with saying that I kinda agree with the folks that say the current system is ok, but I so see a few main downsides and think it could be improved:
- I think it’s a net negative when a slot rolls really far. It indicates that the championship isn’t very desirable and it feeds into the argument that it is too easy to qualify. Maybe in some sense it means that it is easy to qualify, if you stalk the right race.
- You can miss the last slot by seconds, while seeing other age groups roll far. This makes it feel random, like gambling - again, choose the right race and you are in! I think everyone wants to feel like they worked hard, faced fair competition, and were fairly rewarded.
- With 25-50 slots per race, Ironman has to choose one main priority. They could choose the fastest, like with the top 5 overall suggestion. They can do their best to accommodate proportion of finishers. When they have chosen to boost female slots, particularly for Nice, we saw big roll downs.
My suggestion is that have the qualifying year (I would suggest planty of gap between the end of the period and the championship), use each competitor’s best race result, in terms of score. It’s not perfect - some races will be tighter than others, and it sucks if you have the super fast ex pro in your age group that day setting a crazy pace! But this would allow Ironman to decide what they want to reward, and how to distribute the slots. They could use some slots to take the highest scores, regardless of age group or gender. They could be precise with the percentage allocated to each age and each gender.
I think there are some business downsides - we’ve seen past years where they increase the slots for unpopular races to try and boost attendance. This would cut that, unless they still offered some bonus slots that would roll. Also, I’m not sure how critical the impulse buy is for Kona. I’m guessing it’s desirable enough that this doesn’t matter, but there are probably some people on the fence about whether they should go that jump at the chance.
Anyway, I thought I’d offer my thoughts since I have mostly just read in silence, but this has been a kinda fun thread. Thanks for the entertainment!!!
Now that I’m thinking about it, I think you’re right. Fewer participants so the curve gets squeezed outward.
What we really need is P2, P3 etc. as a share of the winner’s time (where this actually matters). Thankfully in links is the data set.
I think the only thing that undermines the value of the slot roulette is “does anyone want to go?” question.
I think the better way to allocate the slots would be for them to have 13 clearly labeled lines (paper stapled to wooden stake in the ground) and just tell people, “stand in your appropriate line, and sort yourselves accordingly”. You’ll know right away if there is a spot for you in 90% of the cases. You’ll see the age group lines with no spots. You don’t end up with multiple awkward moments in several age groups, “anyone want to go?” etc.
We all have a CPU in our heads and are capable of self-sorting to speed things up. I’m not sure if this affects the magic of the slot roll down or helps it. I feel like it helps it.
Another option to consider is that you could theoretically take any male slots outside the top 75 or say 100 of each AG (if there are any) and say sorry you don’t get to go to Worlds, that slot is going to go to the women. Not sure about the optics of that, but I am sympathetic to the idea that it sucks pretty hard for the 85th guy to get a slot in the male AG if it rolls deep while the 5th woman doesn’t get one in hers.
It ruins it. Part of what gets people excited is the small chance they will win a proverbial lottery. Looking around trying to figure out if the people there are in your age group and if they had a faster time than you. The roll down is actuall fantastic marketing. Making it sterile removes that marketing opportunity.
Ya, but sterile would be checking a box before you sign-up and having your card autocharged and get an email after that you qualified.
There’s still the “who will show up” and looking at everyone lining up and then saying to the 3 guys around you in line, what’s your time, whats your time, etc. and slotting yourself in and realizing you might or might not get it. Plus the hope that comes from when you look at the one line that is empty but has 2 slots, hoping those will roll over to you, etc.
You get the hope and looking around still. You still have to show up. It just speeds that process along. To extend the lottery analogy, it’s like the difference between an instant scratch off ticket vs the powerball that happens every 48hrs or whatever.
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I think part of it is still that they call your name and there’s suspense in the room when you realize you need 2 guys not to show up out of the 4 left to call. Will they show up? Its a similar effect what you’re proposing, but without the moment where the whole room is waiting for you to raise your hand.
And let’s be clear - no one else in the room cares, but you care that they called your name - its your moment.
But that doesn’t impact who gets the slots - if you want to put in a rule that says the slot can only roll so far (especially for Kona) then that’s fine too.
Oh, they’d still even call the name with all the fanfare from the stage. You’re just already presorted and we don’t all have to wait for your name to get repeated 4x and for you to walk up to the stage and shout “yes” 3 times for him to hear it up front.
This graph does show something, and it’s something that should be brought up everytime this argument comes up. The argument for extra women’s slots is incompatible with the AG breakdown of slot allocation.
If women deserve equal representation at WC without equal participation, then every age group also deserves equal representation without equal participation. It’s tough to make an argument for more women’s slots that you can find/replace women with (M75). It’s ageism to say that just because M75 don’t compete in the same numbers as M30 they don’t deserve the same opportunities. Why should the fast M75 be punished because of the lack of participation in their group. The only way to get more M75 to participate is to give them more Kona slots.
Think of the absurdity of a system where top 2 from each AG are awarded a slot. Even just in the women’s ranks, we’ll give everyone who finishes a slot in the oldest groups, yet cut out 3rd/4th/5th in groups that make up 90% of the field.
It’s strictly marketing from IM to publicize extra women’s slots and not do the same for equal AG representation. M75 just aren’t as sexy and marketable as W25.
This post is only mostly sarcastic.
Imma be real with you. Nothing about that guy’s data manipulation would help Ironman as a company. Ironman threw hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in trying to grow the women’s side of the sport. And it just didn’t grow. I’m talking well before equal representation at split world championships.
You think there’s more or less likelihood folks take a Nice slot this year… after Kona is back is announced?
That’s not actually very true though. Who gets the most cheers at the rolldown/ awards? Who gets the most props crossing the finish line? Who do we talk about with our family and friends afterwards?
"Did you see that old guy/lady?”
Now, why don’t we flood that AG with slots? Not because there aren’t more of them in this day and age of the reverse demographic pyramid. But because, get ready for this equal representation arguers – it’s because they just collectivy aren’t that interested in triathlon.
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I am not sure about how Ironman should best distribute the slots but one thing that drives me nuts “ personally “.
Ironman makes you stay the next day to get your kona slot , this is so annoying in this day and age. During Covid they did it by email and they easily could do it like this now.
E.g Cozumel the awards are the next day at 3:30 pm . Basically you have to stay till Tuesday and limit your Monday vacation choices.
First world problem of course but Ironman could change this so easily and make the system better . You could do it at the finish line and then people know that day about the slots and availability etc.
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This is 100% on purpose, exactly in line with Mandatory Thursday check in for a Sunday race.
It gives them bargaining power at City planning meetings. We’re bringing in 2000 participants plus 1.5 family members each, and 80% of them will come in Thursday and not leave till Monday. That’s a much bigger sell than 2000 people coming in solo Friday afternoon and leaving Sunday morning.
I don’t like it either. More consumer exploitation allowed to run rampant due to lack of market competition.
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IMAZ was burritos at 9:30AM outside in the park, I didn’t even go because I was thrashed. Went at 7 to get my lulu finisher jacket and then home to sleep.
Yup , so annoying.
It’s part of the deal that they make with the host town. Check in is 2 days prior so it forces a long weekend. Slots are the day after, so the pointy end will stay another day.
It sucks, but it’s part of the economics
And not actually a thing anymore at most Ironman races. They opened up check in the day before at most races.
Yup I know why they do it and I am stating it’s very annoying and they could do it much better for slot allocation. They can still lie to the cities that we stay for ever and spend so much either way .
I always lie on the survey to make it better for them anyways.