WTC has announced some changes to the Pro qualifying system for Kona (known as Kona Pro Ranking or KPR). This post has a closer look at the changes and the impacts for Kona qualification.
Changes to the KPR
On July 5th, WTC announced changes to the KPR system for the 2014 season (apparently after some discussion with athletes). The changes are:
- Kona becomes a P-8000 race (instead of P-6000).
- There are no more P-1000 races, all of these become P-2000 races.
- The points in each race favor the top racers (i.e. the drop off is much steeper, e.g. in a P-4000 race 6th place get 1.670 points instead of 2.240). This also applies to 70.3 races.
Some things will stay the same:
- The number of athletes (50 male, 35 female) and cutoff points (end of July and August) are unchanged.
- The regional championships (currently Melbourne, Frankfurt and Mont Tremblant) stay P-4000 races.
- Point levels for 70.3 races stay the same. (There are still 4 levels of 70.3 races: P-3000, P-1500, P-750 and P-500 races.)
Impact to KPR qualifying
After running a simulation of the new KPR system, the main impact is that KPR cutoffs move down:
- For men, the cutoff moves (at #43) from 3.790 down to 2.820 points (a reduction of 25%).
- For women, the cutoff moves (at #31) from 4.740 down to 3.930 points (a reduction of 17%).
At first this sounds a bit surprising with P-6000 becoming P-8000 and all P-1000 races becoming P-2000 races, but the steeper drop-off results in the total number of KPR points going down. (The total number drops from about 973.000 points to about 807.000 points – a reduction of 17% which is pretty much in line with the KPR cutoff reductions.)
Here are some athletes that would not qualify at the July cutoff:
- Petr Vabrousek (dropping from #13 with 5840 to #48 with 2655)
- Balazs Csoke (dropping from #34 with 4060 to #51 with 2565)
- Thomas Gerlach (dropping from #42 with 3800 to #86 with 1640)
- Mirjam Weerd (dropping from #18 with 5840 to #34 with 3590)
- Mareen Hufe (dropping from #23 with 5280 to #36 with 3405)
Instead, some of these athletes would get a spot:
- Daniel Fontana (moving up from #47 with 3625 to #28 with 3765)
- Marino Vanhoenacker (moving up from #45 with 3720 to #33 with 3450)
- Luke Bell (moving up from #78 with 2230 to #37 with 3230)
- Jennie Hansen (moving up from #38 with 3960 to #25 with 4685)
- Eimaear Mullan (moving up from #40 with 3910 to #28 with 4350)
- Rebekah Keat (moving up from #36 with 4160 to #29 with 4000)
If you want to have a closer look at my simulation results, you can download an Excel sheet with the KPR points under the old and new system.
Strategy implications
Here are a few implications for qualifying strategies that I see:
- after a top 10 in Kona you basically only have to validate (for the men, even a top 13 is probably enough)
- winners and podium finishers are rewarded (e.g. Marino, Luke Bell, Jennie Hansen, Rebekah Keat – another case that would be avoided now is Mary Beth Ellis having to win three Ironman races in order to qualify for Kona 2011)
- the changes make it harder for the frequent racers (e.g. Petr Vabrousek, Thomas Gerlach)
- By sacrificing prize money, you may be able to pick a weaker P-2000 field.
To further nail this down, let’s have a look what is needed to qualify. The July cutoff of 2.820 (men) and 3.930 (women) from up to five results means that an athlete needs on average 564 (men) and 766 points (women). In a P-4000 this corresponds to a 10th and 9th place, in a P-2000 to a 5th and 4th place. (In the old system, you qualified by placing an average 10th or 8th in a P-2000 race.)
It is clear that qualifying by “racing often” is now very hard to accomplish. Instead, athletes have to make sure that they get the majority of points needed to qualify from one very good result. (After winning a P-2000 race, you can probably qualify with a few extra points from 70.3s.)
Where can this lead to?
- I expect more strategic “DNF”s: If an athlete is too far behind during the bike, there is not much “business sense” in trying to move from 12th place to 10th place: Still no prize money, and not enough points for qualifying. Instead, it’s probably better to call it a day and try again in the next race.
- It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the fields in P-2000 races. Originally I thought they would “even out”, but I think that the races with the better prize money (the “old” P-2000 races, typically with a 75k$ prize purse) will continue to attract the better fields – which will make it easier in the old P-1000 races to make some decent points. (As far as I know, most of these races still offer 25k$.) This is a tough choice to make for the professional athletes.
- There will be even more changes to the start lists in the last few days than we already have. (If there’s a strong field, withdraw; if there is a weak field, try to enter late.) Athletes can register for as many races as they want, and can enter or pull out just a few days before the race without any penalties.
In order to address the last point, I’ve been suggesting for some time that WTC should introduce tighter procedures for registering for and withdrawing from races.
Overall Assessment
In my opinion, the KPR system has been working well in the last years in choosing the best athletes for Kona. (There are always some close calls around the cutoff.) I like the increased focus on the top finishers, but I think this is a minor tweak of the part of the system that has been working pretty well.
However, the main point of contention has not been addressed: The doubts whether the KPR system results in the best Kona race, i.e. the best athletes in their best Kona shape. Some questions that should be discussed:
- the qualification requirement of one full Ironman race in addition to Kona (some “pathological” cases: Andreas Raelert walking the marathon in Regensburg 2011 to recover from an injury; lots of athletes following their Kona race with a “going through the motions” late-season IM just to validate)
- qualification races in August (not leaving sufficient time for recovery and a decent Kona build)
I would like to see the discussion around the KPR move to these issues.
Thorsten –
Well done, again! I really agree with your point about the late entry races. In addition, a beautiful, well-done race like Ironman Mt. Tremblant suffers because the top pros won’t want to do a race so close to Kona if they can avoid it. Having an earlier cut-off for the qualification races would solve this problem, but maybe the next question would be, if you qualified for Kona 14 months prior, are you still relevant? Food for thought.
Beth
Nice one!
IMO August races should qualify for following year , they are too close to Kona and they could serve pretty well to those triathletes not going to Kona to start gaining some points , so Kona points are somehow balanced with August races .
So there will be only one cut-off date in July.
Thorsten,
WTC took steps to tighten up the registration and withdrawal procedure in advance of announcing these changes. And it was not only to prevent abuses in light of these changes; everyone – professionals, age-groupers, and fans – all lose out when the registration/withdrawal process is not robust and reliable.
//Jordan
Thanks, Jordan. I’d love to put together a follow-up describing the procedures. Don’t think there is too much information out there.
(Update: Jordan sent me a long email, I’m working on turning that into a blog post.)
Jordan,
Was this information published somewhere?
Thorsten,
The retrospective analysis is good, but the one thing to be noted is that athletes are generally pretty smart. When the rules change the strategy invoked to accomplish their goals changes as well. For instance, maybe I would have focused on Florida if it was a P2000 and dropped AZ off the list if I was really going for points. As it stands Coeur D’Alene and Cabo were arguably two of the most competitive P2000 races. Some points chasers would have likely chosen the new 25K P2000 races, forgoing the extra money in favor of easier points. This changes the race dynamics at the other races like Cabo or CDA, and as someone who is coming from the back with a stronger bike, smaller fields is what I look for to have success. If I decide to try to go back to Kona in 2014 I’ll have to find a way to navigate these new uncharted waters.
//TG
Thomas,
I’m pretty certain that most athletes will adapt pretty quickly to the changes and change their season plans. What will happen in 2014 remains to be seen, but I think that the “racing often” strategy (that worked very well for you this year) will probably not work. Sorry for taking you as an example, but if possible you may be better off trying to post one really big result, even at the risk of blowing up, DNFing etc. Another idea that may work for you (now that you did qualify for Kona 2013) is to have a decent Kona race, hope that a lot of people DNF and start with some decent points into the season.
Interesting times, but first have a great race in Kona!
Thorsten
Thorsten, thanks. Well argued. My conclusion is that the qualification process was improved.
The “weaker fields” at lower prize purse races probably are now going to be stronger because of the extra points and a need some athletes might have to chase points and a relatively easy win. This means pros developing and trying to ascend are more likely to have to beat someone who is more established, even at a lower prize purse race.
Setting prize money aside for another time, the changes seem to incentivize greater competition for Kona qualifciation and allow races the opportunity to attact pros on equal points footing… making money and appearance fees more of a determining factor.
Overall good changes. I also like the increased weighting of points to the pointy-end of the race. Winners of IM races should have improved opportunity to be at Kona.
Great work,
James
A few things to think about.
If the top Kona guys don’t need points, I assume they will go for money. This means either P4000 races or non IM races with big purses. That may leave more p2000 races open for lesser winners. Being that there are more P2000 races now, and more incentive to get a win, won’t that affect the amount of points in the pool. I would suggest it might take a few hundred more for the July cutoff if athletes get savvy enough… Although not too many were savvy enough to fly over to Japan, and Petr V has already beat the system ;).
Who know, maybe even more pros will say f-it and leave the M-dot for challenge events… Unlikely when you see the turnout’s at the Challenge events this year… Even Penticton was a bust… Shame.
That’s my two cents,, hope it makes some sense,, but I wrote this with my iPad and sometimes it has it’s own ideas about what I am trying to say.
Cheers
Oh, and I agree with the August qualifications.. Having a regional champinshipship in august is absurd. You want superstars winning regional championships and the mens field in mt. T had none at all.
There are enough races in June and July to pick from, but sadly not many of the American events have the community and momentum to justify a championship event.
Sorry, me again… I do also think the points in Kona are also going to drive competition as even 17th and 18th give enough points to keep trucking… Did they ever manage to deepen the prize money?
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