Analysis

Here is my calculation of the KPR at the end of July, deciding 40 male and 28 female slots (in addition to the Automatic Qualifiers). My results are unofficial, the official results will be posted on the Ironman website at http://eu.ironman.com/triathlon/triathlon-rankings/points-system.aspx (but as far as I can tell shows the same data). I do not count AQs and athletes that haven’t validated my rankings, therefore it is a bit easier to determine the Top 40 male and Top 28 females. I will update this post with new information regarding declined slots and rolldown. For now, the athletes with a rank in brackets (e.g. “(42)”) are outside of the July slots. I will update this post with information about slot declines and rolldowns.

There is another cutoff in August, adding another 10 male and 7 female slots. Once the field has been completed, I will work on this year’s version of the Kona Rating Report, looking at the field and each athlete’s chances for a good result. The free report will be released in time before the Kona race, you can already pre-order your copy.

Update July 28th: The first rolldown has happened: Carrie Lester is now marked as a qualifier as well. It’s unclear who has declined her slot, I have marked the female qualifiers without a “Q” on the Ironman site with a question mark. (So even though Carrie is still ranked 29th in my table, she did get a slot.)   So far there is no indication for a rolldown on the men’s side.

Update July 29th: It is now clear that the slot that rolled down to Carrie was declined by Michelle Bremer. I’ve added a “D” to her name and adjusted the other ranks accordingly.

Update August 2nd: All male slots have been sorted. One slot rolled down to Jens Petersen-Bach, as far as I can tell Matt  Trautmann had to decline his slot. All other slots have been accepted.

Update August 3rd: One more slot rolled on the female side, Emma Balham declined and Jodie Robertson accepted the roll-down slot. All July slots on the female side are finalized as well.

Update August 3rd: Just when everything seemed clear, Beth Gerdes declined her slot (details on her blog), and another slot rolled down to Dimity-Lee Duke.

Male KPR Rankings

Female KPR Rankings

Update July 20th: In the latest startlists a few names have been removed. I have crossed them out in the tables below.

The race for the first round of Professional Kona slots is almost over – the July qualifying period that decides 28 female and 40 male slots ends on July 24th. There are only three more Ironman races (Switzerland, Lake Placid as WPRO only and Whistler as MPRO only) and one more 70.3 race (Calgary) before the first cutoff. This post looks at the final slots to be decided based on the rankings before the last weekend and the start lists posted on the Ironman website.

After the races are over, I’ll post the unofficial rankings based on my calculations as soon as possible. (The women’s ranking is already up.)

Women’s Qualifying

Assuming that Heather Jackson validates her slot by finishing in Lake Placid, Ariane Monticelli is currently in the last points qualifying spot. Here’s a table looking at the athletes close the cutoff and those on the startlists with a chance to overtake her:

(Please note that “Needed” is the minimum result needed for qualifying, however it does not assure a slot when others add points as well.)

With Daniela Ryf also on the start line in Zürich, here’s my best guess at who is going to receive one of the open five July slots:

• Verena Walter remains in the Top 28 (1). (It is possible but quite unlikely for her to drop out of the Top 28.)
• Jodie Robertson should be able to finish at least in the Top 10 in Lake Placid 3 in Calgary (2).
• Zürich is the race with the most athletes looking for slots, with probably two athletes racing well enough for a slot – possibly Ariane Monticelli and one of Emma, Kristin and Natascha (3 & 4).
• The last slot would then go to Alexandra Tondeur – but she could be overtaken when more of the Zürich athletes finish well (5).

This would mean that Beth Gerdes and Carrie Lester would drop out of the July slots and that they would have to hope for a rolldown slot.

Men’s Qualifying

Assuming that Andy Potts validates his slot by finishing in Lake Placid, David Plese is currently in the last points qualifying spot. Here’s a table looking at the athletes close the cutoff and those on the startlists with a chance to overtake him:

Based on the available start lists, here’s my best guess at who is going to receive one of the open ten July slots:

• The athletes currently in #31 to #34 (Andrej, Ivan, Denis and Per) will remain in the Top 40
  (1 to 4).
• Three of the Whistler athletes will finish well enough for a slot – maybe Callum, Pedro and Viktor Mike (5 to 7).
• At least two of the Zürich athletes will finish well. If I had to pick two, I’d go with Ronnie Schildknecht and Timo Bracht (8 and 9).
• The last slot should be decided Jens Petersen-Bach and one other Zürich athlete (10).

But there are so many different scenarios that it’s still possible for any of the athletes in the above table to get a slot or drop out of the slot ranks– it’ll be exciting racing on Sunday!

In January 2015 Ironman announced enhanced race coverage of major races, including GPS tracking devices feeding into a new athlete tracking platform (see my post looking at the details). This post looks at the progress Ironman has made during last year and where things are for this season.

2015 Season

GPS tracking was off to a slow start. At the Regional Championships Pros were given a tracker that they had to carry on the bike and run. The following photo shows the tracker on the left compared to an iPhone 5 (the photo doesn’t show that the tracker is about three times as thick as an iPhone):

The Pros had to carry the devices, but for the first Regionals the information was not made publicly available. If you knew where to look, you could see “dots on a map” on a “semi-secret” site by Quarq, the manufacturer of the devices.

Towards the second half of the season (as far as I know starting with IM Frankfurt but also for 70.3 Championships and Kona) the information was integrated into the Ironman website and there was a GPS Leaderboard with constantly updating information showing the time differences between athletes. The old “Athlete Tracker” was replaced by a modernized version with a slicker look and predictions that often were comically wrong. For agegroup athletes the information was still based on the splits from the timing mats.

2016 Season

I was expecting to a see an updated version of the GPS tracking for this season, both in terms of the tracking device (smaller, lighter) and also in the functionality offered to the public. But the first Regional Championships at IM South Africa did not include any GPS information at all, neither publicly not privately.

I reached out to Ironman with some detailed questions but only received a short answer that “there was an issue for the IRONMAN African Championships” and that they are “working to have GPS tracking at the remaining Championship races”.

The North American Championships at IM Texas did in fact provide GPS tracking. A new, smaller device was used:

Apparently these are provided not by Quarq (who continue to offer their race tracking services, for example at Rev3 races as announced in this press release) but by Beacon Athlete Tracking. (I have contacted Beacon Athlete Tracking and they confirmed to be working with Ironman this season to provide GPS tracking but haven’t provided additional information.) Similar to the start of last season, there was a “semi-secret” website for IM Texas with dots on a map but no GPS leaderboard, and no information was available on the Ironman website. Also, the old and much-ridiculed Athlete Tracker was used to show leaderboards and splits for all racers. As has often happened in the past, the tracker had issues and the first two hours of the race no information or splits were available.

My Assessment

One can only assume that Ironman and Quarq had reasons not to continue their relationship, however it is extremely unfortunate that the biggest fans of Ironman racing – those watching the race on site and those trying to follow online –  have to suffer the consequences. So far triathletes following the Regional Championships had to rely on spotter updates from the course and the spotty tracker – very infrequent split information that is not easily available. I can only assume that this also makes the job of the two commenters of the live show, Greg Welch and Michael Lovato, that much harder. Basically things are back to were they were at the start of 2015 and all the progress made during last year has been lost.

While Ironman has stated that they remain committed to providing GPS Tracking for the Pros and their intention to extend that to agegroupers as well, it is hard to discern that from their actions. I hope that they can make quick progress in the next few weeks and at least get us back to the status we had last summer with a working GPS leaderboard and an updated Athlete Tracker for Ironman Frankfurt.

In last year’s post I wrote:

Too often, Ironman efforts have been half-hearted and ultimately disappointing.

Concerning GPS tracking, I sincerely hope that Ironman’s actions will prove me wrong.