Analysis

Late last year, I’ve looked at data concerning the depth of the women’s field and comparing that to the depth of the men’s field. (If you haven’t read it yet, please check out my post “Women’s Field as Deep as Men’s?“.) I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that I wasn’t finding any noticeable difference in recent year’s. My first interest into triathlon was in the late 80’s when Paula Newby-Fraser was such a dominating force in the sport that she seemed to win almost at will and if there was only an Erin Baker on a good day who was able to challenge her.

This led me to have a look at some older data – maybe the depth of the women’s field has improved over time? I wasn’t able to produce the same type of graphs that I used in my previous post as I just don’t have the data. However, I was able to find a list of the top 10 finishers on Slowtwitch (Top Ironman Hawaii Finishers Archive) that I used as my basis for a similar analysis. As a measure for the depth of the field I am using the Top 10 degradation, defined as the cumulative time the Top 10 finishers were behind the winner in each year (for example, in 2014 the Top10 men were 1h24min behind the winner, while the women were 2h01min behind). In order to reflect the different winning times for men and women, I’m calculating the percentage of this sum of the winner’s time (still using 2014 data, 17% for the men, 22.4% for the women). Please note that this measure doesn’t reflect the different field sizes (that lead to increased time differences) – meaning that a similar depth of field would have a larger Top 10 degradation for the women.

Here’s the graph showing the development of the Top10 degradation in Kona over the years for the men (blue line) and women (red line):

In order to give context to the time periods, I’ve added some of the biggest Kona winners. Here’s my interpretation of this data:

• Dave Scott was dominating Kona early on, his six wins were between 1980 and 1988. He was head and shoulders above most of the other Kona athletes and the degradation is at the highest level we have for the men.
  At this time, the degradation for the women is actually lower than for the men – but this is probably more a sign that even the women’s  top racers were still finding their way in this new sport.
• This changes with the start of winning streak by Paula Newby-Fraser (her first Kona win was in 1986, her eighth and last was in 1996), she was dominating at similar levels to Dave Scott.
• After Dave and Paula, Mark Allen and Natascha Badmann both won six Kona crowns, but they didn’t dominate the fields as much. (This probably makes their winning streaks even more impressive as they managed to win a lot of close races.)
  In the early 2000s, the Top10 degradation numbers were pretty much the same between the men and women.
• This changed for a while when Chrissie Wellington won her four Kona titles. In 2009 her third win displayed a domination over the rest of the field comparable to what Paula showed.
• In the last few years, the Top 10 degradation between men and women is back at very similar numbers.

My conclusion of this data: In the early years of our sport, it took some time to develop a decent depth of the field. The men’s field improved first (until the late 80s – at the end of the Dave Scott era), and the women’s field took about ten years longer (until the late 90s – the Natascha Badmann era). Certainly, things have changed a lot since the days of Paula Newby-Fraser – it now takes an absolutely dominating figure such as Chrissie Wellington to „disrupt“ the numbers. Chrissie pushed the women’s field another big step forward, and these days the Top10 degradation indicates no different depth between the men’s and women’s field.

This is an excerpt from my free 2014 TriRating Report which has a lot more information and data on the 2014 season. You can still download it for free!

Men’s Top 10

Rank	Name	Nation	Rating	Last Race	# Races
1	Sebastian Kienle	GER	08:12:57	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	9
2	Nils Frommhold	GER	08:14:10	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	4
3	Frederik Van Lierde	BEL	08:19:33	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	14
4	Dirk Bockel	LUX	08:21:49	Challenge Roth on 2014-07-20	11
5	Eneko Llanos	ESP	08:22:10	IM Fortaleza on 2014-11-09	20
6	Craig Alexander	AUS	08:23:13	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	12
7	Timo Bracht	GER	08:23:54	IM Mallorca on 2014-09-27	23
8	Clemente Alonso McKernan	ESP	08:25:34	IM Cozumel on 2014-11-30	11
9	Bart Aernouts	BEL	08:25:34	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	6
10	Jordan Rapp	USA	08:26:02	IM Arizona on 2014-11-16	13

There were a lot of changes and shifts in my Top 10 ratings in 2014.

Clearly, Sebastian Kienle had a dream year on the Ironman distance, winning in Frankfurt and in Kona. His only disappointment was the 70.3 World Champs – but of course that doesn’t influence his IM rating which he improved by almost 10 minutes! He is my new #1 rated athlete.

There is only a small difference from Sebi to #2 Nils Frommhold. After having to take most of 2013 off with an injury, Nils won IM South Africa, placed second in Roth and had a great first race in Kona, finishing 6th. He hasn’t had a “bad” Ironman race yet, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can improve further while staying healthy.

Last year’s Kona champion Frederick Van Lierde wasn’t able to build on his great 2013 season – but still managed to climb into #3 while improving his rating with a solid 2nd place in Frankfurt (just missing the 8-hour barrier) and finishing 8th in Kona. His Kona result will probably be a disappointment for him – he was in a good position on the run in second place, but ran out of steam in the Energy Lab. I don’t think we’ve seen his best Kona race yet!

Dirk Bockel (#4), Eneko Llanos (#5), Bart Aernouts (joint #8) and Jordan Rapp (#10) will have mixed feelings about their 2014 season. All of them had some good results, but they probably were aiming even higher. Dirk won in Melbourne, but struggled with injuries and missed Kona. Eneko focused on Kona but DNF’d, Bart was shooting for a Kona podium but was too far back after the bike, and Jordan had to re-focus his racing efforts.

Craig Alexander (#6) had practically ended his IM racing career after Kona 2013, then raced Melbourne and put in another focused effort to prepare for Kona, finishing a respectable 13th. This was probably the end of a fantastic IM career, I don’t expect to see him back on an IM start line.

Timo Bracht (#7) decided to skip Kona this year and fulfilled a career goal by finally winning Challenge Roth. He continued to race a lot after that (Copenhagen, Mallorca) and seemed to be a bit flat.

Clemente Alonso (joint #8) had a fantastic fall racing season: Second in Copenhagen, winning Barcelona, second in Arizona and third in Cozumel. He’s already safe for Kona 2015 – he’ll probably need some extended recovery, but will still have some time for a focused Kona preparation.

Women’s Top 10

Rank	Name	Nation	Rating	Last Race	# Races
1	Mirinda Carfrae	AUS	08:56:08	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	11
2	Daniela Ryf	SUI	09:06:26	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	3
3	Rachel Joyce	GBR	09:07:01	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	15
4	Caroline Steffen	SUI	09:10:02	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	18
5	Yvonne Van Vlerken	NED	09:13:42	IM Western Australia on 2014-12-07	15
6	Eva Wutti	AUT	09:14:44	IM Barcelona on 2014-10-05	3
7	Jodie Swallow	GBR	09:14:59	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	6
8	Mary Beth Ellis	USA	09:17:08	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	13
9	Liz Blatchford	GBR	09:17:12	IM Western Australia on 2014-12-07	6
10	Julia Gajer	GER	09:17:22	IM Hawaii on 2014-10-11	8

Mirinda Carfrae continues to be the clear #1 female athlete. She had another phenomenal Ironman-year: Winning Roth in the fastest time of the year and then defending her Kona title with an epic come-from-behind run, improving her rating by almost 13 minutes! She’s leading by ten minutes, but can she have another year like this?

“Rookie of the year” is another obvious choice: Daniela Ryf. With her wins in Switzerland and Copenhagen and her second place in Kona she enters my ranking in #2, sneaking past a number of more established athletes. It seems as if she’ll continue on the path she took this year, but it’ll be hard to improve on winning the 70.3 champs and finishing second in Kona.

Rachel Joyce (#3), Caroline Steffen (#4) and Yvonne Van Vlerken (#5) all had a good season with solid results, but they are still looking for a great Kona race. Rachel wasn’t satisfied with her third place in Kona, Caroline was outright disappointed finishing fifth, and Yvonne even DNF’d. Still, I expect all of them to race strong in 2015, and their preparation will focus on beating Rinnie in Kona.

With Eva Wutti there is another new athlete in #6. She is however, a bit of “hit or miss”, either finishing sub-9 or not finishing at all. (Her three finishes are 8:37, 8:51 and 8:49.) I hope that she gets more stable and manages to be in the mix in the big races with strong fields.

Jodie Swallow in #7 finally managed to have long-distance results in line with her talent, work ethic and racing spirit. While she came up short of great results in South Africa (3rd) and Germany (7th), her season finished strong with a second place in 70.3 World Championships, a fourth place in Kona and also a third place in Bahrain. She proved she can be in the mix in the big races, and will be a strong podium contender in 2015.

Mary Beth Ellis (#8) continues to race on a high level, but she seems to be missing the “winning spark” that she had at the start of her long-distance career. Maybe she was still struggling after her injury late last season? She’ll work hard to win some more races in 2015.

After a stellar first season of IM racing culminating in a podium finish in Kona, Liz Blatchford (#9) solidified her position as one of the top IM racers. Similarly, Julia Gajer (#10) had a successful first Kona campaign, finishing in 6th place. Both will be strong contenders in their 2015 races and will look for a podium finish in Kona.

This is a slightly updated excerpt from my free 2014 TriRating Report which has a lot more information and data on the 2014 season. You can still download it for free!

In other sports – such as golf – the main way of ranking athletes is by the amount of prize money they make. This year, I have extended my list: The 2013 list was limited only to WTC races, this year I also include Challenge and other notable longer races. Therefore, I have an overall money list and a few lists with money only from certain events.

Overall Money List

First, here is an overview of the races I have included in my money list:

Type	Description	Total Prize Money	# of Athletes
Ironman	Full-distance WTC races (not including Kona)	$ 2.032.500	316
Kona	Ironman World Championship (Kona)	$ 650.000	20
70.3 Champs	70.3 World Championship (Mt. Tremblant)	$ 250.000	20
Challenge	Full-distance Challenge races (including Roth)	$ 482.450	107
Bahrain	Challenge Bahrain	$ 440.000	20
Other	MetaMan, Dubai, Embrun	$ 430.000	38
Sum	All included races	$ 4.284.950	415

The next table shows the Top 20 athletes – both from the men and women – that have earned the most prize money in the 2014 calendar year from all the races listed above:

#	Name	Gender	Total
1	Kienle, Sebastian	M	$145.000
2	Carfrae, Mirinda	F	$140.000
3	Ryf, Daniela	F	$125.000
4	Joyce, Rachel	F	$101.000
5	Raelert, Michael	M	$100.000
5	Frederiksen, Helle	F	$100.000
7	Swallow, Jodie	F	$78.000
8	Frodeno, Jan	M	$67.500
9	Hoffman, Ben	M	$65.000
10	Crawford, Gina	F	$64.500
11	Steffen, Caroline	F	$56.500
12	Hauschildt, Melissa	F	$55.000
13	Brown, Cameron	M	$52.500
14	Dreitz, Andreas	M	$50.000
15	Frommhold, Nils	M	$49.500
16	Gomez, Javier	M	$45.000
16	Butterfield, Tyler	M	$45.000
18	Kessler, Meredith	F	$43.000
19	Gross, Sara	F	$40.000
20	Potts, Andy	M	$37.500

For comparison, the ITU had a prize purse of $ 2.2 million in 2014. Their top earners are Javier Gomez (about $180.000) and Gwen Jorgensen (about $192.000).

Ironman Money List

Here are the Top 15 money earners from Ironman races (not including Kona):

#	Name	Gender	Ironman	Total	Overall Rank
1	Gross, Sara	F	$40.000	$40.000	19
2	Alonso McKernan, Clemente	M	$31.000	$31.000	25
3	Kessler, Meredith	F	$30.000	$43.000	18
3	Corbin, Linsey	F	$30.000	$30.000	27
5	Williamson, Kelly	F	$27.500	$27.500	32
6	Abraham, Corinne	F	$26.750	$26.750	34
7	Kienle, Sebastian	M	$25.000	$145.000	1
7	Steffen, Caroline	F	$25.000	$56.500	11
7	Bockel, Dirk	M	$25.000	$26.500	35
7	Tollakson, TJ	M	$25.000	$25.000	40
11	Brown, Cameron	M	$22.500	$52.500	13
11	Wee, Bree	F	$22.500	$22.500	46
11	Ferreira, Amber	F	$22.500	$22.500	46
11	Braendli, Simone	F	$22.500	$22.500	46
15	Weiss, Michael	M	$21.500	$21.500	49

WTC Money List

Here are the Top 15 money earners from WTC races (including Kona and the 70.3 Champs):

#	Name	Gender	Ironman	Total	Overall Rank
1	Kienle, Sebastian	M	$145.000	$145.000	1
2	Ryf, Daniela	F	$125.000	$125.000	3
3	Carfrae, Mirinda	F	$120.000	$140.000	2
4	Frodeno, Jan	M	$67.500	$67.500	8
5	Hoffman, Ben	M	$65.000	$65.000	9
6	Swallow, Jodie	F	$50.000	$78.000	7
7	Gomez, Javier	M	$45.000	$45.000	16
8	Steffen, Caroline	F	$44.000	$56.500	11
9	Joyce, Rachel	F	$40.000	$101.000	4
10	Kessler, Meredith	F	$40.000	$43.000	18
11	Gross, Sara	F	$40.000	$40.000	19
12	Frommhold, Nils	M	$38.500	$49.500	15
13	Potts, Andy	M	$37.500	$37.500	20
14	Ellis, Mary Beth	F	$33.000	$33.000	21
15	Aernouts, Bart	M	$31.500	$31.500	24

Money List from Challenge and other Races

After also adding Embrue, here are the Top 18 money earners from non-WTC races :

#	Name	Gender	Non-WTC Total	Challenge	Bahrain	Other	Total
1	Raelert, Michael	M	$100.000		$100.000		$100.000
1	Frederiksen, Helle	F	$100.000		$100.000		$100.000
3	Joyce, Rachel	F	$61.000	$11.000	$50.000		$101.000
4	Dreitz, Andreas	M	$50.000		$50.000		$50.000
5	Hauschildt, Melissa	F	$47.000		$7.000	$40.000	$55.000
6	Butterfield, Tyler	M	$40.000			$40.000	$45.000
7	Crawford, Gina	F	$37.000	$7.000		$30.000	$64.500
8	Zamora, Marcel	M	$32.500			$32.500	$37.500
9	Brown, Cameron	M	$30.000			$30.000	$52.500
10	Swallow, Jodie	F	$28.000		$25.000	$3.000	$78.000
10	Croneborg, Fredrik	M	$28.000	$18.000		$10.000	$32.000
12	McNeice, Dylan	M	$26.000	$26.000			$28.500
13	Reed, Timothy	M	$25.000		$25.000		$31.000
14	Mullan, Eimear	M	$23.400		$23.400		$31.400
15	Carfrae, Mirinda	F	$20.000	$20.000			$140.000
15	Bracht, Timo	M	$20.000	$20.000			$25.000
17	Skipworth, Todd	F	$19.500			$19.500	$19.500
18	Van Vlerken, Yvonne	F	$19.000	$4.000		$15.000	$26.000

One of the ongoing issues in Ironman racing is the disparity between Pro men and Pro women slots in Kona (50 for men, 35 for women). The main argument for the different number of slots is that there are a lot more men than women racing. Roughly, there is a relation of 2 men to 1 women that has been pretty much unchanged in recent years.

However, women’s races are often more exciting than the men’s race. In one of my older posts on this issue I’ve presented data indicating that the racing at the front of the women’s race is probably even closer than on the men’s side. Arguments for that include the number of lead changes on the run, or the time difference among athletes on the podium.

However, the decision by WTC not to increase the number of women’s Kona slots seems to be based on the perception that men’s field is „deeper“ than the women’s field. This post has a look at this claim and tries to provide data.

Suggestions for Measuring Depth Of Field

There have been a few „proofs“ that the men’s field is deeper than women’s. However, they don’t hold up to closer scrutiny.

Kona 2014

I’ve heard Kona 2014 mentioned as anecdotal evidence that the women’s field was lacking strength. The observation was that by the time the field reached Kawaihae, 30 men were still in the race. At the same point in the women’s race, there were only ten contenders left.

Of course, using an arbitrary point in a single race is neither convincing nor statistically significant. There are tons of counterexamples, take for example Kona 2014 (the same race) about 30k into the run. At that time, the men’s race was practically decided with Sebastian Kienle 10 minutes ahead of the rest of the field, while there were at least three women with a chance to win the race (Daniela Ryf, Rachel Joyce and Mirinda Carfrae).

KPR Points at #50

Another argument that is used very often is the number of KPR points at #50. Here’s the data from 2014 (not using Automatic Qualifiers):

• Schildknecht 3.915 vs. Bazlen 3.595

There is only a 320 points difference, probably smaller than some proponents of this argument make it sound. Also, the difference is a consequence of #50 being interesting for the men and not interesting for the women. We can easily refute the argument that this shows a lack of depth for the women by looking at #35:

• Jurkiewicz 4.280 vs. Wee 5.040

While Bree has a lot more points than Jeremy, I don’t think that this shows that the men’s field is less deep than the women’s field – it just shows that #35 is interesting for the women and not for the men.

Time Differences

As an example of many similar lines of argument, Andrew Starykowicz has posted a detailed look at the time differences between the TopX in men’s and women’s fields. His data shows that the men’s races are much „tighter“ than the women’s races:

However, this ignores the fact that the women’s fields are smaller and that a smaller field leads to larger gaps between the finishers. To simplify a bit, if the women’s field is half as large as the men’s field, this leads to time differences twice as large (e.g. if the male have a difference at #10 of 9,5%, the expected female difference would be in the order of 19% instead of the observed 11%). So rather than show that the women’s fields are less competitive, the larger difference is more a sign of the smaller fields.

Races with Small Women’s Fields

Each season, there is at least won Pro race that has a very small women’s Pro field. In 2013 IM France had only five starters, in 2014 IM Wales had only two. Of course it’s always bad if prize money goes unclaimed (France paid 8 deep, Wales 6 deep), but I think that this is again a consequence of the lower number of women racing: There are too many races for the smaller women’s field. I have suggested in my post on the Registration Procedures that WTC should keep Pros informed about the number of athletes that have already suggested for a race so that these very low numbers can be avoided.

My Suggestion

It’s actually surprisingly hard to come up with a measurement for the depth of the field, considering the different field sizes and different finishing times. A way that I suggest are Relative Finish Distribution Charts („REFIDCHs“). A Relative Finish Distribution Chart shows the percentage of finishers for different percentages of the winner’s time. Here’s the chart for the men’s Kona finishers from 2011 to 2014 (the years that the KPR has been used to determine the fields):

On the horizontal axis we see the relative finishing time (for example 105% means that the time equivalent to 105% of the winners time in a given year). On the vertical axis the chart shows the part of the field that has finished faster than the time on the x-asis. (For example, roughly 35% of the athletes finished within 105% of the winner’s time.)

REFIDCHs can be used to visualize the depth of the field. A „deep“ field will finish pretty close to the winner, resulting in a very steep graph. A „less deep“ field will have a flatter curve, showing that more athletes have finished further away from the winner. So if the women in Kona were less competitive, they would have a flatter curve, one that would be to the right of the men’s graph.

So let’s add the women’s distribution:

The two graphs have a very similar shape – if there is a difference, the women’s graph is to the left of the men’s graph, indicating a slightly deeper women’s field.

Let’s control for the influence of the different field sizes. One could argue that the smaller women’s field cuts away the slower end of the field. (Anecdotally, this isn’t the case: Some women that missed Kona this year included athletes such as Amy Marsh, Angela Naeth, Rebekah Keat, Laura Bennett or Eimear Mullan that could have placed well in Kona.) This is pretty hard to factor into the data, so I’ve done the next best thing by removing the men’s qualifiers in #35 to #50 from the results. (For 2014, this would have affected such well-placed finishers as 2nd Ben Hoffman, 6th Nils Frommhold or 10th Romain Guillaume.) Adding in a third graph for the „reduced Men’s field“ produces the following chart:

While reducing the men’s field has led to a steeper graph (indicating that more athletes would have been cut from the „slower“ end of the field), the graphs are still very close together, crossing each other at various points. Using this chart, there is no indication that the women’s field is any less competitive or deep than the men’s field or even the reduced men’s field.

Conclusion

I couldn’t find any data that supports the claim that the depth of the women’s field is any worse than the men’s field. (If you have other suggestions, please let me know!) While the lower number of athletes leads to bigger gaps in the Ironman races across the globe, at least the women that made it to Kona are as competitive as their male counterparts. In my eyes, the women’s race in Kona would be even more exciting than it already is if there were 50 Pro slots for the women.

Last year I wrote a post on procedures around Pro registration for Ironman races. In it, I have made a few suggestions for improvements and wanted to check on the progress.

Suggestions from Last Year

Here is a quick overview of the changes I suggested:

1. Information on how many athletes have already registered for a race
2. Standard registration deadline of four weeks
3. Easily available start lists after end of registration
4. Stricter withdrawal process

Let’s have a closer look at what happened with each of these suggestions.

Registration Levels

I am not aware of any information that is made available to Pro athletes (or the triathlon press) that indicates how many athletes have registered for a race. If this information had been available, it might have helped to prevent the really small Pro fields (most notably IM Wales which only had two Pro women). From what I heard, some more athletes were interesting to start in Wales after the start list was published, but were declined as the registration deadline had already passed.

As I have suggested last year, I don’t think that putting out the information has to be complicated: A monthly email newsletter by Pro Services to the athletes could just note the current number of athletes registered for the races in the next months, and athletes could adjust their plans accordingly.

Registration Deadline

For most races, a registration deadline of three weeks was used (and in some cases, strictly enforced). I think that almost all Pro athletes are aware that they have to plan their races in time. Except for a few licensed races, I don’t really see this as an issue an more – a three week deadline seems to be standard and accepted.

Start Lists

Ironman has made big steps forward in making start lists available: They have a standard location on their website for Pro start lists (Results – Pro Athletes, then Event Registration – Pro Start Lists). A big thumbs up!

However, there are still some improvements that should be made for the 2015 season:

• While it’s been working well for North American and Asia/Pacific races, it was hard to get timely and up-to-date information for European races.
• The start list should be available within days after the registration deadline, but there were a lot of cases when it takes much longer.

Withdrawals

This is the area where more progress should to be made. Quite often, athletes that have announced on social media that they won’t be starting are still on the start list – apparently because Pro Registration has not been notified. It seems to me that the sanctions that Ironman has in place (basically starting at losing 500 KPR points) are not sufficient to ensure that all athletes that won’t start properly notify Pro Registration services.

Also, the information about withdrawals should be reflected in the published start lists. At this point, it is not apparent when start lists are updated and where the updates have occurred. I think two simple changes could help here:

• On Ironman.com, note the date that the list was last changed in addition to the race name (so instead of „Ironman Lake Placid“ it should be „Ironman Lake Placid (updated June 10th)“)
• In the list, cross out athletes that won’t start, and note late additions in a special way (e.g. color or by adding „LA“ at their bib).

Overall

I think that Ironman Pro Registration has put a lot of work into improving the information that is available. In addition, I’m thankful that Paula and Heather are alway very helpful and quick in answering my requests. (From what I heard, they are also great in answering questions from Pros and the triathlon press.) However, I think there is still room for improvement in the information that is publicly available, and I hope that this will also make their job a bit easier by reducing the number of requests they have to handle.