Analysis

This is number three of my blog post series with my thoughts around KPR issues. Today, I’ll have a look at the reasons why WTC switched from a slots system to a points system across all Ironman races. My intention is that this is not only a historically interesting discussion, but that it could also be helpful to develop ideas for an improved system.

Before the KPR

The „old” system (I’ll call it „Slots System“ for short) was similar to the system currently used for age groupers. There were only a few Ironman races on the calendar, and the qualifying system for Pros was relatively simple:

• The Top 10 finishers in Kona got an automatic slot for the next year (as far as I can remember even without the need to validate).
• Each Ironman race had a handful of Pro slots (e.g. four). When you finished high enough (in the Top 4 in the example) you were awarded a slot.
• If someone was not interested in a slot (or had already secured a slot in earlier race), the slot rolled down to the next placed athlete.
• You had to be within 5% of the winner to be eligible for a slot.

When the number of races increased, this system lead to larger and larger Kona fields and was more and more problematic, so in June 2010 WTC announced the „Kona Pro Ranking“ and implemented it for the Kona 2011 qualification.

Assessment of the Slots System

The Slots System has a number of advantages:

• Once you raced and placed well, you had a slot. You knew the day after the race whether you qualified or not. This gave athletes certainty, for example they could fix their travel plans.
• The certainty of a slot also allows for a focused, long-term Kona preparation (instead of having to be ready to scramble for some last minute points in case the cutoff moves).
• The system rewards good, single day performances – which is also required if you want to win Kona.

In his blog post on ideas for a new Kona qualifying system, Tim Bradley suggests to completely revert to a Slots System with 12 qualifying races. However, there are a number of serious drawbacks to a slots system:

• With the growing number of races, the Kona fields got too large. (Between 2005 and 2009 you had more than 100 Pros finishing the race, since the introduction of the KPR the number is around 65.) This lead to crowded swims and also drafting problems on the bike.
• If you wanted to reduce the size of the Kona field, the number of slots per race would be very small. At more than 30 races as we have today, basically there is just one slot per race except for a few „special“ races that might get two. In this scenario, there is a big element of luck in picking the race without „a rockstar“ showing up at the last minute. Tim’s scenario with 12 races could work.
• Another element of luck is the rolldown of slots not claimed by athletes. Later in the year there might be more athletes that already have a slot, so you could speculate on the rolldown going a bit further.
• The system does not reward racing often while missing the podium. There have always been a number of athletes in Kona that aren’t contenders each time they race. It would be next to impossible (or very lucky) for these to work towards a slot – I think there has to be a way for those racing often and well, but not spectacular to have a realistic chance to make it to Kona.
• There is no system in place in case a slot that was already claimed later gets released again. (Say someone qualified in November, but gets injured in May and can’t race.)

My assessment: As long as the number of races with direct slots is small and there are not too many slots per race, direct slots could be a good addition to the current KPR. However, a system solely based on slots is unlikely.

This blog post describes my thoughts around another KPR issue – the number of races that have Kona qualifying points. (Just to be clear, this post discusses the total number of Kona qualifying races on the calendar for the professionals, not the number of races that count for the final KPR standing – I will probably take up that issue in another post.)

Currently, there are more than 30 full distance Ironman races and an even larger number of 70.3s where you can collect points for the KPR. In addition, WTC is steadily increasing the number of races. The way the system is now, it requires and thereby encourages frequent racing to collect as many points as possible. As examples consider Maik Twelsiek and Lucy Gossage. At the end of April, both had won an IM and placed second in another one, yet they can’t be certain of a Kona slot. (Maik should be fine with a few more points 70.3s, but Lucy even raced another full-distance Ironman.)

Andrew raised another point in his interview with Bob Babbit:

With the number of races that we’re adding on our global series, you could argue that it’s outstripping the magnitude of a quality professional athlete pool.

and outlines how a changed system could look like:

And so one of the things we’re having a serious look at is whether we should have fewer races that have points [..] and have those [..] points be higher.

While Andrew made these statements in the context of 70.3s, this is a pretty clear indication that the number of races that offer KPR points will go down – in other words that there will be Ironman races that do not offer any KPR points.

The first of these races is going to be Ironman Maryland – the old Chesapeakeman rescued by WTC. This is a race that never had a Pro division, so it’s relatively easy to use this as a trial for a non-Pro Ironman. However, I believe that we will also see a number of existing Ironman races that will not offer a Pro race (or at least one that is relevant for Kona qualifying).

There are a couple of different scenarios how this could work. In a blogpost, Brandon Marsh suggests that only a reduced number (probably around 20) have points that count towards Kona qualification. All other races still offer points, but these would just be used to determine who gets to race in the bigger races once they get close to capacity. Another suggestion (in his  post „A way forward for pro Ironman racing“) comes from FirstOffTheBike’s Tim Bradley: He suggests that there are 12 races that qualify for Kona. These 12 races could be on a rotating schedule among the existing races – so that each race is a Kona qualifier every three years on average. (He also suggests a slot-based system that I’m going to have a look at in a later post.)

One of the main criticisms of the KPR system is that athletes have to race well in at least two Ironman races (and possibly more) in order to qualify for Kona. Therefore, I think that ultimately a reduction in the number of qualifying races should create a situation where one really good race (winning, maybe even a podium) is sufficient to qualify for Kona. I’m even thinking about a scenario that only about 10 races will have points that qualify for Kona. A possible breakdown could be Kona, three Regional Championships (currently Melbourne, Frankfurt and Mont Tremblant) and five other races across all continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia/Pacific). Even sticking to the current points system levels of P-8000, P-4000 and P-2000, this reduced number of races practically guarantees that a podium spot even in the five continental races would probably be good enough to qualify for Kona.

Of course, this is not a complete discussion of the issue of reducing the number of races, and I’ll go into further details and consequences in my next posts.

My assessment: Changes likely, possibly reducing the number of KPR races as far down as to about ten. Maybe 70.3 qualifying will be used as a trial for a modified system.

At a quick glance, the „Kona Pro Ranking“ (or KPR for short) determines just how Professional athletes qualify for Kona. However, the KPR is much more important, it has an impact on races (by determining „important“ races it strongly influences where Professional athletes race), athletes (encouraging, almost forcing them to plan their season in order to qualify) and allocation of prize money (loosely following the points allocation). Therefore, changes to the KPR should be carefully considered – and are also hotly debated.

I want to go through a few of the issues being discussed, trying to summarize where the discussion stands, to give my assessment of likely changes, and also to add some of my own thoughts. Rather than doing this in one large blog post, I will write a number of smaller posts, each focusing on a single issue. Assuming that WTC will not dramatically change the system, my goal is not to discuss all possible ideas, but focus on those that are relatively close to the existing system and therefore have at least a little chance to be considered.

The first issue I want to discuss is validation.

Technically, validation describes the requirement of having to finish one full distance Ironman race outside of Kona in order to be eligible for a Kona slot. Most often, this is discussed in the context of previous champions. They are automatic qualifiers for five years after their win as long as they “validate their entry by completing one full-distance Ironman race, excluding Kona, during the Qualifying Year.” Some of the past champions have voiced concerns about this, most notably Craig Alexander who made it clear that he would prefer to race just one full Ironman per year – in Kona. The recent 70.3 champion and the Hy Vee champion are also automatic qualifiers (but only for the year immediately following their title) and the Kona Top 10 usually have enough points to ensure a points slot.

There have been at least two incidents where athletes clearly just competed to finish and not to place well:

• Andreas Raelert walked the marathon in IM Regensburg in 2011 with a calf injury.
• Mirinda Carefrae just completed IM Florida 2013 after her fantastic Kona win. Both Mirinda and husband Tim O’Donnell made it clear that they would take things easy on the run, complete with joking on twitter about what comfort food to consume on the run.
• There may be a third incident later this year, with Pete Jacobs announcing that he would „just walk“ an Ironman after bowing out of IM Texas not being 100% fit.

My own views on this issue have changed a bit over the years. 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 more 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’m sure that if everyone is interested, WTC, the local race organizer and sponsors, the athlete and the athlete’s sponsors could produce something that is a worthwhile for everyone involved (joint press releases, athlete’s appearances, sponsor give-aways, promos etc.).

In the recent interview with Bob Babbitt, Andrew Messick said the following about the rules for validation (Andrew said he doesn’t begrudge Mirinda, so this shouldn’t be seen as a personal attack on the athletes):

We have a set of rules, and there are always ways in which motivated people can get around the intent of the rule. Sometimes we tolerate it, and if we find it intolerable, we change the rules.

After Florida I was thinking that WTC would think that enforcing validation isn’t very helpful, and would instead switch to something like „one IM or two 70.3s”. However, now it more sounds as if WTC will further tighten the requirements for validation, probably something like “x% within the winner” or “not more than y minutes slower than the winner”.

My assessment: Validation will continue to be required for all Kona qualifiers. If there are going to be changes, the requirements for validation will be tightened.

Race Conditions

Conditions in Australia were similar to last year: an adjustment of 12:47, mainly because of a pretty fast run (8:31).

Male Race Results

The main story in the men’s field has to be Luke Bell’s DNF. He was leading the field by a large margin after the bike, but had to call it a day even before the 20k mark. He wasn’t completely recovered from a knee injury earlier in the year and tweeted his analysis that „3 wks of running just not enough“. If his knee is basically okay and just needs a bit more time, my guess is that he’ll race a September Ironman (defend his title in Mont Tremblant?) or start to rack up points for Kona 2015 with a late season Ironman.

After Luke was out of the race, Elliot Holtham quickly took the place in the spotlight: He passed Paul Ambrose and while never moving far ahead just had the better run, winning his first Ironman and gaining a good position to qualify for Kona. Paul Ambrose finished second, with Nick Baldwin taking the last spot on the podium.

Female Race Results

After the swim and bike, Lisa Marangon had built a solid lead with a race best bike. However, once Melissa Hauschildt had put on her running shoes it was clear that if her first ever marathon went well, she’d be able to take the win. Mel passed Lisa around the 24k mark, then built and held a small lead. It’ll be interesting to see what she can do once she has some more IM-specific training under her belt – and what that will mean for her 70.3 speed. Lisa Marangon took the 2nd place and is now on the qualifying bubble for Kona. Melanie Burke took the last spot on the podium with the best women’s run of 3:09.

Race Conditions

Conditions in Taiwan were pretty quick this year: The adjustment of 20:06 was about as fast as IM Melbourne, mainly on the strength of a relatively fast bike.

Male Race Results

As usual, Dylan McNeice stormed ahead on the swim and bike. The race got exciting on the run, when Fredrik Croneborg and Jason Shortis almost caught him towards the end: The Top 3 were within less than two minutes.

Female Race Results

Britta Martin had a good day, being „in the green“ for all three legs, and finished almost 30 minutes ahead of Iron-rookie Jessica Fleming. Belinda Granger ended her IM career with finish #50 and the last spot on the podium.