A famous saying in golf is “Drive for Show, Putt for Dough,” highlighting the idea that while a powerful drive may grab attention, it’s the consistent putting that wins tournaments. This post aims to explore a similar concept in the triathlon world with the phrase “Bike for Show, Run for Dough.” I’ll dig into the performance data from the Ironman World Championships to see how well this holds up. First, I’ll discuss the 2024 men’s race won by Patrick Lange, currently the leading long-distance runner. Then I compare this to the 2022 race in Kona which had slightly different race dynamics. The next step is a broader look at all men’s winners from 2004 to now. Finally, we check the corresponding data for the women’s winner. Let’s get started!

Kona 2024

The graphs in this post look at how well the top finishers have performed on the bike and the run. (Of course, the swim is also an important component as it sets up which group athletes will start in, but as the shortest discipline the swim has a lesser impact on the overall results.) To compare the times from different years I show the bike and run splits compared to the tenth fastest in each leg. This way, I can abstract from developments over the years (e.g. improved race nutrition, aerodynamic advancements on the bike or the effect of the super-shoes on the marathon times) and also remove the effects of faster or slower conditions from year to year.

Here’s the graph for 2024 (for all of the graphs in this post, click for a hi-res version):

To explain the graph further: Each athlete is represented by a small dot with labels for the top finishers. Further to right means that the athlete was faster in relation to the tenth fastest athlete on the bike, further to the top means an athlete was faster on the marathon. For Kona 2024, the tenth fastest biker was Kristian Blummenfelt with a 4:05:47, the tenth fastest runner Gregory Barnaby with a 2:50:33. Consider the dot for winner Patrick Lange: His 4:06:22 bike was 0.2% slower than the tenth time, his 2:37:34 marathon was 7.6% faster. As he was almost eight minutes quicker than Matt Hanson and everyone else, Patrick’s dot is way above everybody else’s. Another dot: Sam Laidlow is shown in the bottom right. His bike was 3.4% faster than the tenth, but then his run ended up a whopping 13.1% slower, resulting in him only finishing in 18th place.

The background colors show a better run (light blue background), even bike and run (white) and a better bike (orange). Of course the further to the top right an athlete is, the faster he has finished. But each athlete usually has specific strengths; here’s what you can discern in the graph:

1. To place well, a good bike and run (gray annotations) are needed, i.e. fast legs compared to the rest of the field, but not one leg dominant over the other.
2. Winning needed something special; this year it was Patrick’s awesome run. Other athletes with a good run (blue boxes) also finished well overall but a bit further down the field than those in the first group.
3. Having a better bike (orange annotations) but not being able to have one of the ten fastest runs did not lead to a good overall finish in Kona 2024. The best of this group was Kristian Hogenahug in ninth, he also had the best run of this group. The runs of T2 leaders Sam Laidlow and Robert Kallin were 13.1% and 12.7% slower than the tenth run split; they were only able to finish 18th and 23rd.

Kona 2022

Was Kona 2024 unique in how the strengths determined the finishing positions? Let’s have a look at the previous Kona race in 2022:

Let’s have a look at the different groups in the 2022 race:

• Athletes with a better bike had better results than in 2024, but they also had better runs compared to the fast bikers in 2024. Sam Laidlow had a comparably fast bike (3.6% quicker than tenth in 2022 vs. 3.4% in 2024) but a much better run in 2022 (2.1% quicker). With Sebastian Kienle and Leon Chevalier there were two more athletes with a better bike in the Top 10.
• The good runners took the win as in 2024, in 2022 they also claimed third and fourth place.
• There were fewer balanced athletes in 2022 compared to 2024.

Men’s Winners

The 2022 and 2024 data support the theory that Kona favors good runners, but athletes with different profiles haven’t been too far back. Will the data also hold up for other years? Here’s the graph showing the Ironman World Champions since 2004:

Which groups do the winners come from?

• Athletes with a  “Better Run” are clearly the largest group. (Depending on where exactly you want to determine the borders between the groups, it’s about 12 out of 20 winners.)
• There have been only four winners who took the title based on a “Better Bike.” Normann Stadler won Kona 2004 and 2006 with great bike legs, in similar fashion Sebastian Kienle basically decided the 2014 race on the bike. But even with their great bike legs, they still had marathons that were at least among the ten fastest of the day. The most recent win with a better bike was Sam Laidlow’s win in Nice 2023. Later this year we will get another data point if the tough bike course supported Sam’s strategy to attack on the bike. (There was also a challenging bike course in St. George 2022, but Kristian Blummenfelt won with a dominating run.)
• There are a few winners who won based on “Good Bikes and Runs” 

In summary, the men’s Ironman World Championships can be simplified to “Bike for Show, Run for Dough”. No winner had a run that was not among the ten fastest of the day, and only five that were not at least 2% quicker. Looking at the recent run times, the average of the tenth run splits of the last five years is 2:50:09. You have to be ready to run sub-2:50 even if you have a strong bike leg. If you can’t be among the fastest on the bike, then you have to run at least five minutes quicker (sub-2:45) if you want to have a chance for the win. There is more leeway on the bike, about half of the winners had a bike split within one percent of the tenth bike time. On the other hand, Kona has not favored athletes going too hard on the bike; there were only five winners with a bike split that was more than 3% quicker than the tenth bike split.

While these rules are based on previous results, there are always athletes looking to rewrite these rules. Let’s see how well they will hold up in future years of racing in Kona and in other locations!

Women’s Winners

There is another aspect of this “Kona Rule” that’s worthwhile to mention. So far, the graphs showed data for the men’s race – does the rule also apply to the women? Here’s the graph showing the Women’s World Champions and how they did relative to the tenth bike and run splits:

In general, the women’s data also supports the dominance of the run over the bike, with at least six women who won Kona based on a better run versus only two that have been pre-determined by a better bike (and even then Natascha Badmann in 2005 and Daniela Ryf in 2018 also ran more than 5% quicker than the tenth run split). 

There is one bigger difference to the men’s: A large group of athletes dominated on the bike AND the run, with Laura Philipp as the most recent example. She had the best bike and run in Nice 2024, just as Daniela Ryf in Kona 2016 and 2017 or Chrissie Wellington in 2007. Everyone in this group always had the best split in one leg and one of the three best splits in the other. No one of the recent men’s winners has been as dominant.