With the Kona Pro startlists finalized (see my posts on the male and female fields), this post looks at which nation the Pros are from and which nations have the most Pros.
Overall
Here are the numbers of professional athletes from different nations in Kona this year:
- 17: Germany, USA
There are actually 19 PROs that qualified from Germany, but Mareen Hufe and Natascha Schmitt had to withdraw. - 11: Australia (after the withdrawal of Pete Jacobs)
- 9: Great Britain
- 6: Switzerland
- 4: Belgium, Spain, Canada, Denmark
- 3: Brasil, France, Austria
- 2: South Africa, Estonia, New Zealand,
- 1: Croatia, Netherlands, Italy, Bermuda, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia
As you can see, the US has been dominating the field for a long time by quite a large margin, this year would have been the first time Germany could have taken the top spot.
Female
The next chart shows the breakdown for the Female Pros – here the USA is still clearly the nation with the largest number of athletes:
Male
Things are a little bit different on the male side. This year Germany has the most male Pros, the first time as the “outright” leader. In the past there has been a back and forth between the USA, Australia and Germany:
