Analysis

One of the changes in the 2015 KPR rules address the issue of validation. (You can ready more about the 2015 KPR and receive updates about the qualifying situation by subscribing to the 2015 KPR Observer.) In one of my earlier posts, I have written about my thoughts on validation.

Before going into a detailed discussion of validation let me state that I’m not judging the athlete’s choices nor do I want to imply that some choices are likely in the future. I merely use what has happened in the past or what might happen in the future in order to give examples for specific situations. 

Increased Requirements for Returning Champions

In short validation defines a minimum requirement of finishing at least one Ironman race outside of Kona in order to be eligible for a Kona slot. Most often, the term „validation” used as a requirement for past champions to get a non-points slot: They get an automatic entry (called „five year exemption“ in the KPR rules) for five years after winner Kona. In the 2014 season, there have been two incidents when deciding champions decided to race an Ironman without going for the win:

• Mirinda Carfre validated at IM Florida (three weeks after Kona) by finishing 23rd in 9:48, including a 3:34 run.
• After missing IM Texas because of an injury, Pete Jacobs validated at IM Switzerland (a week after Challenge Roth) by finishing 15th in 11:42, including a 5:37 bike and a 4:56 marathon. (Pete wrote about his reasons in an open letter to Ironman CEO.)

Ironman CEO Andrew Messick expressed his frustration in the way that some champions have fulfilled their validation in an interview with Slowtwitch:

Last weekend one of our former world champions validated for Kona ..  that athlete went 11:42 with a 51 minute swim, 5 hour and 37 minute bike and a 4:56 run. [Messick was referencing 2012 Ironman World Champion Pete Jacobs of Australia who was validating his 2014 Kona entry at Ironman Switzerland in Zurich] There was never any doubt that this was simply punching a ticket.

Not surprisingly, the requirements for validation have been increased in the 2015 KPR rules:

Former Pro Athlete Ironman® World Champions .. will be required to validate their entry by racing competitively (as determined by IRONMAN in IRONMAN’s sole discretion) and finishing at least one (1) Ironman®-Branded Kona-Qualifying Race (excluding the 2014 Ironman World Championship) during the 2015 Qualifying Year.

Discussion

The requirements in the KPR rules are not very specific – so I had a look into the Merriam-Webster dictionary for a definition of „competitive“:

• having a strong desire to win or be the best at something
• trying to win a contest or be more successful than others

Going by this definition, validation would require that a returning champion races in order to win (or at minimum to place well). Obviously this is what Ironman would like to see, but clearly not what Rinnie and Pete did. Even if Pete did the best he could do at his specific situation in Switzerland, I can’t see this fit the above definition of „competitive“.

I think the language is only helpful in showing „undesired“ behavior – “not racing competitively“ which should be easy to determine. However, it it not helpful in giving an athlete of what is required of him or her to validate. In the example of Pete who did not have a choice other than to race a week after Roth, what would he have had to do in order to be considered „racing competitively“? And would Rinnie’s performance in Florida have been judged to be competitive? Where is the cutoff? One could try to come up with better criteria than what we have now – maybe be within x% of the winners time, or score at least k number of KPR points. However, Ironman doesn’t seem to plan to give a clearer guidance on what they determine to be competitive.

What about the Points Slots?

There is another issue that has to be discussed: The requirement of „racing competitively“ only applies to returning champions. This leads to two questions: If a returning champion’s performance has not been deemed „competitive“ (and therefore not eligible for an automatic qualifier), is it then still possible to be considered for a points slot? (I can’t see anything in the KPR rules that would prohibit it.) This could theoretically happen if Sebastian Kienle comes into a situation similar to Pete: His 8000 points from winning Kona will be enough to be above the points cutoff. If he „finishes without racing competitively“, he might be denied an automatic qualifier as a returning champion, but nothing would keep him from claiming a points slot. I’m not sure if this makes sense.

In addition, this is effectively putting a higher requirement on returning champions (say Leanda Cave who finished 18th and is currently ranked with not enough points for a slot) than an athlete who has placed well in the last Kona race (say Daniela Ryf who finished 2nd and is currently leading the rankings). Leanda has to „race competitively“ for her automatic qualifier, while Daniela could „just finish“. (Again, I’m not implying that this is likely or that she even thinks about this.)

I expect that this „disparity“ will be addressed in the next KPR rules change: The increased number of candidates that could get a Kona slot without racing competitively is much larger (basically, most of the Top10 men and women should already be safe from a points perspective), so I’m sure there will be a few more cases this season. (We have already seen a potential case last year when Tim O’Donnell used a 33rd place finish in Florida as his „validation“ IM.)

My Personal Opinion

My base position on validation is unchanged since I wrote my thought on it in May: 

I think it is obvious that no-one thinks that a recent Kona winner is not „worthy“ of starting in the Kona Pro field. But if Kona winners could just rock up to Kona, they might have an unfair advantage: By not having to race any IMs, they could be better rested than all the other participants that have to struggle for points to make it to Kona. Therefore, I am (a bit reluctantly) agreeing with the concept of validation.

However, I think that the rules changes made (and those that I expect to follow) are just making things more and more complicated and subjective. Therefore, my suggestion would be to accept any Ironman-distance race as validation. (Pete and Rinnie wouldn’t have had to race an Ironman if their Challenge Roth finish would have counted as validation.) However, I can’t see that Ironman would see this as a viable solution so I think that this will unfortunately continue to be a contentious issue.

Among the changes to the KPR for 2015 (official text on ironman.com website) is the reduction of number of Ironman races that will count as part of an athlete’s total score for the KPR. In the past (up until 2014), it was possible to use up to five full distance Ironman races for the total score. Starting with the KPR qualifying for Kona 2015, only up to three IMs can be part of the total score. (There can still be up to five scores total, but only up to three can be from IMs, similar to the up to three 70.3 results that can be part of the total.) Here’s a look at the changes in the rankings that this will probably bring. Because the women have fewer slots available, they usually race more often than the men, so I’ll have separate sections for each gender.

Men

Here are the men who qualified for Kona that had more than three IMs in their total KPR score. I have added their total number of Ironman finishes and the number of points they would loose in parentheses.

• 5 IMs: 2 athletes
  Matt Russell (8-1080), Harry Wiltshire (6-1105)
• 4 IMs: 5 athletes
  Daniel Halksworth (4-340), David Plese (4-340), Marek Jaskolka (4-405), Christian Brader (4-305), Justin Daerr (4-230)

Under the new rules, these athletes would have had a lower score. If they wanted to make sure to qualify for Kona, they would have had to race 70.3s for some extra points. 

Among the qualified athletes, Axel Zeebroek raced four IMs this season, but his total score only uses three of these, so his total wouldn’t change under the new rule.

In addition there are athletes that finished more than three IMs but didn’t qualify. As the rule change will only affect those that actually might be interested in a Kona slot, I’m only listing those that scored more than 1.000 points:

• 8 IMs: Petr Vabrousek (3.265)
• 5 IMs: Jonathon Woods (1.385)
• 4 IMs: Kyrill Kotshegarev (3.220), Joshua Rix (1.400), Balazs Csoke (2.090), Thomas Darby (1.890)

Women

Here are the women who qualified for Kona that had more than three IMs in their total KPR score. I have added their total number of Ironman finishes and the number of points they would loose in parentheses.

• 5 IMs: 2 athletes
  Lisa Roberts (5-1125), Jackie Arendt (5-610)
• 4 IMs: 9 athletes
  Elizabeth Lyles (4-960), Amber Ferreira (4-405), Melanie Burke (5-720), Asa Lundstroem (4-720), Kristin Moeller (4-960), Sophie Goos (4-565), Bree Wee (4-720), Jessie Donavan (4-540), Katja Konschak (5-540)

Under the new rules, these athletes would have had a lower score. If they wanted to make sure to qualify for Kona, they would have had to race 70.3s for some extra points. 

Among the qualified athletes, Beth Shutt raced four IMs this season, but her total score only uses three of these, so his total wouldn’t change under the new rule.

In addition there are athletes that finished more than three IMs but didn’t qualify. As the rule change will only affect those that actually might be interested in a Kona slot, I’m only listing those that scored more than 2.000 points:

• 5 IMs: Mareen Hufe (5.165)
• 4 IMs: Ashley Clifford (3.385), Erika Csomor (4.780)

Overall Assessment

Obviously, the impact of the rule change is different for the men and women. 

The impact on the men’s cutoff will be relatively small (only 7 out of 50 qualifying athletes had four or more IMs in their total score). I think that racing under the new rules would have driven them to do more 70.3s, and the changes to their total score would have been in the order of 100 points.

For the women, there is a larger number of athletes that are impacted (11 women out of 35 qualifiers have raced four IMs or more), and the impact on their scores would also have been higher. All of them would have lost 400 points or more, and I’m not sure that they would have been able to fully compensate by racing additional 70.3s. 

To sum up, I think that the men’s cutoff will be lowered by about 100 points and by 400 points for the women by only allowing up to three IM scores.

Of course, there are other changes impacting the cutoff projections. If you want to see my overall projections for the 2015 cutoff and which athletes already have a safe slot, you should subscribe to the 2015 KPR Observer, consisting of an Initial Information Package and ongoing email updates as the season progresses.

Over the last weeks, there has been a lot of discussion around the issue of Women Pro slots for Kona. Tawnee and I have repeatedly discussed what was happening on our EndurancePlanet podcast, and I thought that this is a good time to sum up the recent developments and issues.

50WomenToKona

In the summer of 2013, the issue of extra Kona slots for women Pros has been raised by Rachel Joyce in a witsup article. Last year, the discussion never really gained momentum. Then in July 2014, a new Twitter account with the name of „50WomenToKona“ took up the issue, contacted a lot of triathletes, managed to get a lot of interest and is still actively pushing the issue.

To sum up the discussion, the argument for men to have more slots than women is based on the fact that there are more men participating in Ironman events, both at the age group and the Professional level. The counter arguments are that participation numbers shouldn’t determine the size of the field for Championship events, that the top end of the field of the women is as close as for the men, and that women simply deserve equal treatment in 2014.

Boulder Meeting (Early August)

With the mounting pressure around the number of Kona slots, a meeting was set up between WTC CEO Andrew Messick and a number of Pro women in the week before IM Boulder. Other Pros had the chance to at least listen to the discussion via a conference call. I was not part of this meeting, so I have to rely on the accounts of the meeting – mostly from interviews by Andrew (with Triathlete and with Slowtwitch) and an interview that Mirinda Carfrae did with Triathlete.

Among other things discussed, Andrew acknowledged the push for extra slots, but instead of agreeing to something specific, he indicated that

„[t]he women we talked to were not at all focused on a specific number, they just wanted it to be the same. So we’re going to look at that for 2015, [… asking] what is the right number of professional athletes that should be starting at the world championship.”

Since that interview, I have not seen this issue discussed in public except for a few tweets by Jordan Rapp, and no final decision has been announced by WTC.

Extra Slots for 2014?

Another issue discussed in the Boulder meeting was extra women Pro slots for 2014. I don’t have any official information on this, most of what is in the public was written by Jordan Rapp in a thread on the Slowtwitch forum.

Apparently, WTC offered extra WPRO slots for 2014 – either an extra 10 or 15 slots. (There is conflicting information about this.) I’m not aware of the specific procedure that these slots would have been assigned (e.g. how many extra July and/or August slots), but the Pro women were to agree whether or not to have extra slots for 2014. (Again, specific details are sketchy – was that just a majority decision or did a decision require unanimity?) In case the WPROs decided to accept the extra slots, they were expected to participate in a one-day event focused on „women issues“. (Once again, unclear if this was to be an internal workshop or a „PR event“ for WTC.) All of the Top 50 women were given a chance to weigh in (coordinated by Rachel Joyce), and the decision would be made by the athletes already qualified at that point (28 point slots at the end of July plus automatic qualifiers).

The extra slots didn’t get the required support, the main argument was that „moving the goalposts“ wouldn’t be fair: Some athletes raced another IM to make sure they qualify (e.g. Natascha Badmann and Kristin Möller who backed up in Switzerland after Germany), some decided to have a lighter schedule (e.g. Amy Marsh who tried to qualify with another 70.3 or Angela Naeth who decided against racing another IM). Other examples include Mareen Hufe who might not have DNF’d in Frankfurt after it was clear she would not get the points to get a spot in the Top 28 for July; and there are probably athletes – further away form the Top 28 or 35 – who might have added another race to their schedule.

Lots of Open Questions

As far as I can see, the only thing that seems certain is that there will be no changes in the number of WPRO slots for Kona 2014. We don’t have any hard announcements by WTC concerning 2015, neither regarding equality of slots nor a specific number of slots. There are a lot of other loose ends for Kona 2015 qualifying (apparently the number of races counting for the KPR score is also still open). We only have a few more days before the first Ironman with KPR points for Kona 2015 (Ironman Wisconsin on September 7th), and it would only be fair to all Pro athletes to know the rules for qualifying. I hope that WTC will soon announce more details and make things a bit more predictable!

All the qualifying races for Kona 2014 have been run, and we have the final KPR ranking that decides who of the Professional athletes will get a slot. There is still some uncertainty whether all athletes accept their slot, and there may still be some rolldown – both from August athletes and maybe also from July athletes that decide not to race after all.

Women

Most of the slots were already clear after Mont Tremblant (Amber Ferreira, Sara Gross, Melnaie Burke, Beth Shutt). The final slots were decided in Copenhagen (Daniela Ryf, Sofie Goos) and Louisville (Jackie Arendt):

Name	Country	Points
Ryf, Daniela	CHE	7810
Ferreira, Amber	USA	7365
Gross, Sara	CAN	6620
Burke, Melanie	NZL	6190
Shutt, Beth	USA	6090
Goos, Sofie	BEL	5365
Arendt, Jackie	USA	5170

In addition to these seven athletes, Leanda Cave validated her automatic qualifier slot by winning in Sweden.

Mareen Hufe narrowly missed the last slot (by 5 points!), she has to hope for a rolldown:

Name	Country	Points
Hufe, Mareen	DEU	5165
Naeth, Angela	CAN	4890
Csomor, Erika	HUN	4780

Update Aug 27th: It looks as if all athletes accepted their slots and that there will be no rolldown for the women.

Men

The race for Kona went down to the wire as well, with Harry Wiltshire (2nd in Japan after racing Sweden a week before) and Chris McDonald (winner in Louisville) snatching slots in the last races:

Name	Country	Points
Bracht, Timo	DEU	5410
Halksworth, Daniel	GBR	5230
McDonald, Chris	USA	5015
Holtham, Elliot	CAN	4725
Tollakson, TJ	USA	4640
Wiltshire, Harry	GBR	4385
Cunningham, Richie	AUS	4335
Zyemtsev, Viktor	UKR	4280
Robertson, Peter	AUS	4215
Brader, Christian	DEU	4075
Passuello, Domenico	ITA	4075
Daerr, Justin	USA	4050
Schildknecht, Ronnie	CHE	3915
Raelert, Andreas	DEU	3610

Timo Bracht will very likely decline his slot, so Domenico should also make it to Kona.

Update Aug 26th: Domenico Passuello tweeted that he has now been offered a slot. It is unclear who declined a slot, Timo is the obvious guess.

Update Aug 27th: Justin Daerr is now marked as a qualifier as well. This means that both Timo and Victor must have declined their slots.

Update Aug 29th: Ronnie Schildknecht is also marked as a qualifier. At this time, it is not apparent who has declined his slot, all athletes still have their “Q”s. The slot was opened because Dirk Bockel (one of the July qualifiers) declined his slot after all. Dirk had to decline because of a hip injury.

Update Aug 30th: Rolldown has been finalized and the official list was announced. Please refer to my Kona Startlist for the full list and ongoing updates.

Update Aug 31st: Apparently, the WTC press release was not the last word: Cameron Brown decided to decline his slot after all, allowing Andreas Raelert to make it to Kona at the very last minute. (I’ve asked WTC about it, they said that athletes have until Aug 31 – today – to complete registration and there could still be changes.) 

The next athletes have to hope for a rolldown:

Name	Country	Points
Thomschke, Markus	DEU	3460
Ambrose, Paul	GBR	3440

When WTC announced the changes to the KPR for 2015, a number of questions were left open (for examples please refer to my post on the number of Pro races). In the last week, Ironman has quietly updated their 2015 Pro schedule and a few open questions have been answered:

• The announcement included that there would be a fifth Regional Championship. It is now clear that this will be the African Championship in South Africa. (Update Aug 20th: Strangely, the Ironman website has now reverted to show South Africa as just a P-2000 race, with price money TBD. New Update Sep 4th: There were a number of announcements today that South Africa would be a P-4000 race and the African Regional Championship. I would assume that the information slipped out a bit early and was quickly retracted for a while.)
• The announcement announced changes to the North American Ironman races but did not contain any statements whether there would be changes in other regions. When asked, WTC told me that regions outside of North America and Europe would be „Status Quo“. In fact, all races in Africa, Asia and Pacific keep their Pro status.
• WTC said that they would be „[s]ome changes and refocusing of money and points strategically in EMEA region“ and there was some speculation about changes for European races. However, the published race calendar does not have any changes for the European races.

I am a bit surprised by these non-changes and the way they were made public without any press release. As there are no changes outside of North America for 2015, the new schedule – with a fewer number of races in North America – puts North American athletes at a clear disadvantage. I think that we can still expect some changes in Europe for 2016, but apparently the time for making these changes for 2015 qualifying has been running out.

For now, we will have 33 Pro races in the 2015 Kona qualifying (up one race from 32 races in 2014, mainly because there are going to be five new races). Unless there are going to be more changes (such as new races or races loosing Pro status), that number will go down to 30 races for 2016.