Thorsten

At the end of last year I extended my ratings to the individual disciplines, so you get a better picture of where each athlete’s strengths and weaknesses are. This also allows me to get a more detailed look at how the race might unfold. I think that the graphs give you good picture of what a “typical” race between these athletes is going to look like – and I hope that you will also be able to quickly spot if an athlete is doing much better (or worse) than what could be expected. Of course, there is still a lot of room left for speculation: Is athlete A going too fast on the bike (so he will blow up on the run – think Marino in Kona)? Athlete B is a great runner, but can she can afford to give up that much time on the bike (for example, Rinnie)?

A (little) qualifier: Of course, this is just based on “pure” numbers. This does not take “race dynamics” into account. I’m pretty sure that there will be little groups during the swim and bike and that the athletes in these groups will finish closer together than the pure numbers indicate. Also, there is no (statistically valid) way that I can predict the performance of the new IM athletes – therefore they are not included in the graphs. Especially the performance of Bevan Docherty is offering a lot of room for speculation.

Men’s Race

With the above qualifiers, here’s how I think the men’s race is probably going to unfold:

The graph shows how much behind the race leader each athlete is going to be. (A lot of inspiration come from Russel Cox’s post-race posts showing how a race did unfold using the IMLive data, e.g. for Arizona 2012 or Cozumel 2012.)

Here are a few highlights:

• Marko Albert will probably lead after the swim. Terenzo and Balazs Csoke won’t be too far behind, maybe they will form a group to properly distance Cam Brown who will be 2-3 minutes behind. All the other Pros will be around 10 minutes back.
• The field will take about 60k on the bike to sort things out. Cam will probably take the lead by then – but again race dynamics might come into play and Terenzo and others may try to stay with him.
• Of the top athletes after the bike Balazs has the slowest run rating (3:27, and therefore will probably loose a few spots). But his run results have been pretty mixed and his last run was a 3:07 in Austria), so he may be able to surprise. Other than that, the run could turn out to be pretty boring – the graph shows that only the race for 3rd place may be close.

Women’s Race

Here’s the corresponding graph for the women’s race in New Zealand:

The women’s field is much smaller, but it will probably be a bit more exciting towards the end:

• Meredith Kessler will lead after the swim and is probably going to extend her lead over Gina Crawford on the bike.
• Gina is the best runner in the field, based on the numbers she will take the lead just before the 30k mark. However, with a projected winning margin of just around two minutes anything can happen on race day.
• Carrie Lester and Candice Hammond won’t be too far behind, so if Gina and/or Meredith run into problems, they’ll be ready. Even with the smaller women’s field, I still have four athletes within 10 minutes!

Update: I goofed up importing the participants, so I missed a few athletes. The most notable athlete is Meredith Kessler, who clearly changes the women’s race. Sorry, MBK!

(Photo provided by Jay Prasuhn)

TOP 3 from 2011

Last year, the race couldn’t occur as planned: On Saturday it was impossible to have a race, so the race haas to be moved to Sunday and shortened to a 70.3. This race was won by Marino Vanhoenacker and Meredith Kessler.

Here are the results from the last “full” Ironman in New Zealand from 2011:

Male Race Results

Female Race Results

Course Records

Course Rating

The Course Rating for IM New Zealand is 04:14.

Race Adjustments for IM New Zealand

KPR points and Price Money

IM New Zealand has 1000 KPR points for the winner. It has a total price purse of 50k$. For the age groupers, there are 40 Kona slots available.

Male Race Participants

Female Race Participants

Winning Odds

Male Race Participants

Based on his previous results, Cam Brown is the clear favorite, but the question “Is he to old to win another one?” always comes up for him in Taupo. For fun, here is a “different” photo of Brown, Cameron:

Cam’s biggest threats come from two countrymen Terenzo Bozzone (back from injury and a DNS in Auckland after smashing into a car door) and Bevan Docherty (moving up from ITU and starting in his first full Ironman):

• Cameron Brown: 62% (1-1)
• Terenzo Bozzone: 14% (6-1)
• Courtney Ogden: 8% (12-1)
• Marko Albert: 7% (13-1)
• Scott Defilippis: 6% (15-1)

Female Race Participants

Now that I’m correctly including Meredith Kessler, the women’s race is much closer. Gina Crawford is still my top pick, her rating is a little bit better, and she is a previous winner in New Zealand. It’ll be an exciting run in Taupo:

• Gina Crawford: 44% (1-1)
• Meredith Kessler: 39% (2-1)
• Carrie Lester: 13% (7-1)
• Candice Hammond: 3% (29-1)

This Saturday, we’ve had the first Iron-distance Pro race of the year in beautiful Wanaka, New Zealand.

As usual, the conditions for the race were pretty slow – the overall adjustment was -6:02 (leading to a new course rating of -4:39). The adjustments mainly came from a cold swim and a windy and hilly bike, while the run was pretty much comparable to other courses.

Male Race Results

Before the race, overall favorite Chris McCormack was a bit skeptical about his fitness. His fears were justified, his results were okay, but not up to his usual standard. (As a consequence, he slipped to #16 in my ratings, and Jordan Rapp moved into #10.) Instead, the race was won by Iron-rookie Dylan McNeice, who posted a fantastic swim time (close to the course record by Kieran Doe, but well ahead of all other athletes), held steady on the bike and then was still cool enough to shake off Jamie Whyte who managed to close the gap on the run. Another impressive debut!

Female Race Results

On the female side, race favorite Gina Crawford delivered. Her win faced its biggest danger when she caught some stomach bug in the week before the race, but she was strong enough on race day to win wire-to-wire in a new course record. Her bike was so strong that she opened a 16 minute gap to Jo Lawn, who in turn was run down in the last stretch by Candice Hammond. Kate Bevilaqua struggled a bit on her comeback after more than a year of struggling with injuries – but at least she’s back to finishing Ironman-distance races!

In 2012 I did a series of posts on the winning odds for Kona and how they change over the year. I’d like to continue that for 2013. Here is the first post of that series.

Male

After all the 2012 racing is over, here are the chances for winning Kona 2013 for the men:

• Craig Alexander: 24% (3-1)
• Pete Jacobs: 23% (3-1)
• Marino Vanhoenacker: 17% (5-1)
• Chris McCormack: 11% (8-1)
• Andreas Raelert: 7% (13-1)
• James Cunnama: 5% (18-1)
• Nils Frommhold: 3% (31-1)
• Cameron Brown: 2% (43-1)
• Eneko Llanos: 2% (43-1)

The graph on the right shows the changes that occurred since early October 2012 (including Kona):

Female

Here are the 2013 Kona odds for the women:

• Mirinda Carfrae: 25% (3-1)
• Leanda Cave: 22% (4-1)
• Caroline Steffen: 22% (4-1)
• Rachel Joyce: 11% (8-1)
• Mary Beth Ellis: 7% (13-1)
• Yvonne Van Vlerken: 4% (26-1)

Here are a few of the events that lead to the changes:

• After the Kona race, Rinnie, Leanda and Caroline are very close together – it would be very hard to pick a favorite. Rinnie has to find back to her winning form, and Leanda and Caroline will have to work hard to repeat their great 2012 season (or even improve further). An exciting October to look forward to, especially considering that Rinnie and Leanda probably won’t race another IM before Kona!
• Rachel and Mary Beth will look for some further improvement to close the (statistical) gap to the first three women.
• As for the men, there are going to be a few athletes that were not on the 2012 list that are going to play in role in 2013. Yvonne van Vlercken is one example, if she manages to stay on track with her training and prep, I’m sure that she’ll have a great season.