Now that the July races are over and the first round of Kona qualifiers has been decided, it is time to update the Kona odds.
Men
Some of the top contenders validated their Kona slots in the July races.
The main changes are a consequence of the following results:
- Marino Vanhoenacker won IM Frankfurt, putting him into a solid statistical 2nd biggest favorite for Kona.
- Andreas Raelert had a sub-standard (for him) results in Frankfurt, so his statistical chances decreased a bit.
- Cam Brown’s chances decreased a bit – even though he posted a solid result in Roth, it was not on the “winning Kona” level.
Women
There were a few changes on the women’s side as well:
Here are the main events resulting in changes:
- Caroline Steffen won IM Frankfurt in convincing fashion, further closing the gap to Rinnie.
- Rachel Joyce also had a great result winning in Roth. Maybe she can continue the British dominance in Kona?
- I finally had to remove Cat Morrison from my Kona odds – she is recovering from an injury and is not going to be able to qualify for Kona 2012. Hopefully she’s going to come back stronger than ever and will be able to play a role in the next years.
Hey Thorsten, love your work. But why wouldnt Macca’s ITU long course win bring him way up in the odds? I would have to imagine he and Crowie are favorites after seeing that result.
Doran,
glad you like my posts!
Re Macca: My statistics (ratings, predictions etc.) are based on long distance events, i.e. the Ironman distance (3,6k-180k-42,2k or 2.4mi-112mi-26.2mi). This means than I don’t include any other distances, such as Olympic distances, 70.3 or the Nice-distance that the ITU long distance championships are on (I think 4k-120k-30k). I’m not really sure how to convert any of these non-IM-distances to “proper” IM results. Other than Macca, this also applies to 2nd and 3rd in the ITU champs, Eneko Llanos and Dirk Bockel.
But I have to agree with you, Macca is looking very sharp this year. He did validate his spot in an IM, he raced very well in the ITU champs and is really focusing on Hawaii now. (I think he’s in a training camp in Kona right now.) When I’m going to do my full predictions, I’ll include “non IM races” (Crowie usually does very well in the 70.3s leading up to Kona) and how well the athletes are performing in Hawaii – but I’m not sure how I’m going to do that for the “math side” of my predictions.
Again, thanks for your comments
Thorsten
I am surprised to see Andy Potts remains absent from the top ten after his master lass lake placid. I understand you don’t include 70.3 results in the calculation and that Andy has been focussing on that distance. I guess he just had to much ground to make up in the ratings.
Also it seems like Caroline steffen should be at the top by a crazy margin. What’s the deal there? What am I missing?
Keep up the great work.
Michael,
thanks for your comments – let me see how I can address them.
Re Potts: He’s currently ranked #14. He’s had a good result in Lake Placid with an 8:25:07 (adjusted to 8:25:46), but that is still way off the really good results (e.g. Crowie’s 07:57:44 in Melbourne, adjusted to 08:05:19). Even compared to not-so-well-known athletes (my example is Sebastian Kienle who finished Frankfurt in 08:09:55, adjusted to 08:21:49), he is still a bit off. Also, Andy is “hurt” bis his lack of really great results, so I can’t see him post a time that would allow him to win in Kona.
Re “Xena” (Caroline Steffen): She’s had a really good year, probably a better year than Rinnie has had so far. If I had to pick an “athlete of the year” (a good idea for my end-of-year report ;-)), she’d be my pick (again, so far – Kona may change it all). But my ratings (and also the odds) consider all the results of an athlete, and Caroline has had some off-results that decrease her ratings and also her statistical chances of winning Kona. Have a look at my “Top 10 Ratings” page, this has all the results of the TOP 10 athletes.
Hope this makes sense to you
Thorsten
Comments are closed.