Analysis

This blog post is just a quick rehash of two issues that I have written about in the past: Number of slots for Women, and qualifying in August.

Last summer, Rachel Joyce wrote an article on witsup.com arguing for equal Kona slots between men and women. The issue has been picked up by others, and I put together a blog post with some supporting data. However, WTC has not made any changes in the number of slots. My view on this issue hasn’t changed at all, I think that the weird differences in Kona qualifying between men and women (women need at least 1.000 more points to qualify) just add one more argument for offering the same number of Kona slots for men and women.

August qualifying is another issue that has been on my mind for quite some time. My first post on this issue dates back to October 2011. The data I analyze in that post shows that the shorter the period of no IMs before Kona, the worse your performance, and a rest period of more than three months is best. This means that even racing an IM in July is not good for your Kona performance, and a race in August is even worse. (This is consistent with the observation that if you raced well in the Ironman Frankfurt or Challenge Roth, you can’t expect much in Kona.) Therefore, I strongly argue against August qualifying as a strategy for those that want to do well in Kona, and I also think that WTC should not encourage it. I understand that there are business reasons for offering August races, but I can’t really see why the August races can’t be the first ones of the new qualifying year. At the very minimum, racing multiple Ironman races for the last few Kona points slots shouldn’t really be possible – these athletes don’t have a decent chance for a good Kona race.

My assessment: My position on these issues is clear, but I haven’t seen any signs that WTC is considering changes in these areas.

In an earlier post I suggested (as have others) to reduce the number of races that qualify for Kona. Among other things, this will have an impact on those races that are no longer relevant for Pro Kona qualifying. A reduction in the number of qualifying races has to include a discussion of what happens to the „non-Kona races“.

One possible scenario is that these races do not have a Pro race at all. (I don’t think that’s a good idea, but I’ll go into that later on.) The conventional wisdom seems to be that these races can’t survive in the long run. I disagree: The majority of age group racers are certainly in the sport because of the lure of Kona and Kona’s Pro races and stories. But I don’t think that the choice of a race is much influenced by the actual pro field that’s racing. At least for me, considerations such as the location or date of the race play a much bigger factor – and the quality of the race experience that can be expected. I’d say that as long as WTC offers a great race experience, they have a strong „sales proposition” – even without offering a great Pro race. I’m optimistic that the IM Maryland data will strengthen my position, and I’m sure that some races will drop their Pro category.

But I think it would be a bad decision to drop the Pro field from all non-Kona races. The Pro field has grown much deeper than can be handled by ten or fifteen WTC races. Where would they race? I’m sure that Challenge and others would be happy to pick up these racers – WTC would just be strengthening the profile of their own competition.

So the non-Kona races should at least offer a Pro category. If prize money gets redistributed from smaller races to the Kona races (and no additional money gets earmarked for pro purses), it will be next to impossible to offer even the smallest IM prize purse we have today (25.000$ total for men and women, paying six deep down to 750$). Still, there should be some prize money for the top finishers (after all, racing for money is the definition of a professional athlete).

In addition to prize money, there have to be some other advantages to racing in the Pro category of non-Kona races. Brandon Marsh suggests that you collect points that help decide who gets a slot in the bigger, qualifying races. You could further formalize that, and the non-Kona races could form a „feeder series“ with a separate points system, maybe also an extra prize money pool that gets awarded at the end of the season and a better paying „season finale race”.

Another argument that I frequently hear is that sponsor bonuses for winning an IM (or placing on the podium) are an important part of the money athletes make from sponsor contracts. I find it hard to believe that a sponsor that is willing to put money into Ironman athletes isn’t aware of the difference between say a Regional Championship and a new IM with a small field. Still, there is no harm in calling races „Ironman“ regardless of whether they qualify Pros for Kona or not and therefore at least give the athletes the ability to collect a bonus for winning an IM, even if that particular IM is a 4th tier non-Kona race.

I also think these smaller races could offer additional chances for participating Pros to increase their stature. Pro panels, meet the Pros, little talks etc. could help Pros show that they are excellent ambassadors for themselves and the companies that sponsor them. Other than to provide a location for these things and some announcements, this shouldn’t be too much work for the race organizers, and not cost any money, while providing good value for the Pros.

My assessment: Most non-Kona races will continue to offer a Pro category, but they will have to work with Pro athletes to provide benefits in addition to shrinking prize purses.

This is the next post in my series of thoughts on different aspects of the KPR. This will be a pretty short one – discussing when the KPR will change.

In the recent interview with Bob Babbitt, Andrew Messick said that changes are being discussed but no final decisions have been made. This could mean two different things:

• Discussion is almost finished, and changes will be announced shortly and take effect for Kona 2015 qualifying.
• The discussion will take a while, and changes won’t take effect for Kona 2015 qualifying.

My guess is that we’re looking at the longer timeframe, which means that Kona 2015 qualifying will be governed by the same rules that we saw this year. I have two reasons for this:

1. WTC has usually given the rules at least two seasons before changing them again. We’ve just seen pretty big changes last year – and the full effect of these changes can’t really be assessed before the end of qualifying. By then, the rules for the next season would have to be in place.
2. Changes to the KPR effect a large and diverse group: Just think of the different interests of athletes and race directors, top Pros and those struggling to make a living from triathlon, and the different regional interests of the individual races and communities involved. The lack of any specific plans indicates that these groups have not been informed yet.

In my opinion, changes to the system should be made for 2016 qualifying after a long and open discussion between all interested groups.

My assessment: In the absence of any clear statements by WTC, both scenarios are possible. Still it’s more likely we will see only minor changes for 2015.

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.