Ironman’s Kona allocation scheme rewards less competitive men while faster women are slot-blocked

The resounding argument in support of the return of the Ironman World Championship to a single day in Kona has hinged on athletes’ desire to make the field at Kona competitive again.

This move is actually selling those athletes short.

The proportional representation system for women ensures the most competitive athletes DO NOT get a Kona slot. Anyone who believes that the old qualifying system puts the best-of-the-best racing against each other on the start line has been green-washed.

Digging into the data

When you peel back the numbers a curious thing is revealed. The proportional slot allocation system for women is not a necessary evil to deliver the championships back to a higher standard of competition, or a return to a single day of racing in Kona. In fact, this system favours qualifying spots for men who are actually less competitive than some women. If the true desire is to send the best athletes to Kona, that is not being achieved with proportional allocation.

But there is a way to do it. And for anyone’s who’s argument for a return to the old way is based on bringing back the highest level of competitiveness to the start line, they should be in support of whatever slot allocation delivers on this promise.

Five-time Ironman Phillip Graeter, who has raced at the world championships in Kona and St. George, crunched the numbers to arrive at a slot allocation system for women that rewards the top athletes, and is gender-fair. Graeter offers valuable insight, backed by his expertise as the Director at Energy Ventures Analysis, where he integrates analysis of environmental and energy markets in the United States.

The crux of his proposed system is to reward performance, not headcount. His data reveals that the proportional representation system results in sending men who’ve been outperformed by women to the championships simply because the number of slots go deeper in the men’s field for each age group.

The data shows, because of an overall low head count for women, they generally have to win their age group outright to get a slot. What this sets up is a situation in which a woman who finished with a faster time than a man doesn’t get a slot, while the slower male does.

The glaring truth about how this plays out

It looks like this. There is the typical one slot in a female age group. A woman comes in second, with an exceptionally fast time and close behind the winner, but doesn’t get a slot because of proportional representation. A man, who did the same race and had a slower time than the second-place female does get a slot, because based on proportional representation the slots run deeper in his age group.

This is not what I’ve heard is the desire from athletes who have been vocal on social media in support of the single day racing in Kona. So much of the response has been based on the desire to have a system that sends only the best to Kona. Is that what is being achieved? No.

The breakdown of this scenario proves that a female can outperform a male on the course, but get left in the dust at the allocation ceremony, while the slower male is awarded a slot. How is that righteous argument now?

To demonstrate this using hard data, Graeter analyzed 24 races and found that 95 per cent of female age group athletes only had one slot to compete for in their category. The data can be viewed here. Finishing times across both genders revealed a gap that indicates that across certain age categories, women are often finishing in faster times than men, which is also established by Graeter’s analysis here.

The end result is that Ironman is ignoring this competitiveness, and actually sending overall slower athletes to its championships, while slot-blocking the female athletes who out-perform men.

A perfect world exists for slot allocations

There is a world in which this scenario is resolved. As Graeter outlined, the system that ensures the highest level of competition, fairness and gender equality, would allocate one slot automatically to the winner in each age group, then offer the remaining slots to “athletes closest in percentage to the average finishing time of the top three finishers in their respective AG.” Any roll-down slots would follow the same math.

This method does not interfere with a return to a single day of racing in Kona. It supports the most common sentiment that the world championships need to return to a more competitive event with only the best athletes racing, and it re-establishes a system that supports women in sport and gender equality.

Alongside his data analysis, Graeter wrote, that this approach “rewards performance, not headcount …elevates the caliber of the Kona field …aligns with Ironman’s own slogan – Every Second Matter – across all athletes … and reduces single-slot female AGs from 235 to 143.”

Ironman CEO Scott DeRue recently stated that his data showed that women were dropping in numbers since the championships added Nice to its rotation. That is hardly surprising.

It’s time for Ironman to put it’s money where it’s mouth is

His inference was that the interest dropped because Nice isn’t Kona. I’d risk arguing that it was because Nice is Nice. As a female triathlete who raced Nice before it became a world championship venue, there was a shockingly low number of female participants.

Across the entire race field, there were approximately 80 women competing that day. It was so rare to see a woman out on course that when I rode by, spectators would point and say in French, “Une fille!!” (A girl).

The Nice bike course is brutal and intimidating. I’ve also raced Kona and Nice was harder, in my humble opinion. Women shying away from Nice is not an indication of their desire to participate in triathlon – or their legitimacy in the sport.

If Ironman is honest in their repeated claim that they “listens to athletes and follows the data,” then we should expect them to consider the outlined slot allocation system. It has the potential to embody their stated values, and those of athletes, which include sending the highest level of competition to Kona, rewarding every second an athlete “made matter,” encouraging women to participate in their brand, and achieving widespread support for their decision to return the championships to a single day in Kona.