#133: Back we go to everyone in one day on one island
The great Kona circle.
issue #133: April 30, 2025
All-sporters, I’ll admit today’s newsletter is deep weeds, really not for newcomers to the sport. Sorry. It sort of assumes that the phrase “proportionality” means something to you — ie. how Ironman world championship slots are calculated via a black box algorithm based on participation. And that you remember how rolldowns used to be.
Or, as Sara keeps saying to me: They finally negotiated more spots on the pier, and they’re choosing to give them to the men.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s just go ahead into it.
- Kelly
The quote isn’t ‘come and we promise to build it’
Ironman made official today what I guess we could have seen coming:
Back to a one-day world championship in Kona starting in 2026 — women's racing mixed in with the men (yeah, yeah, they’ll have time gaps between starts, sure, great)
Back to unequal men’s & women’s slots to the world championship — handed out based on participation rates
Back in October, when we were weighing whether this was going to happen, I said something was going to have to be sacrificed in this question: The women, the history, the rotation, the numbers? They picked the women.
When we were getting the background on this decision, earlier this week, Ironman kept saying ‘we polled and this is what people wanted.’ (Point of fact: What people actually wanted, per the polling, was a two-day race in Kona with the men & women’s races separate. But.) The CEO kept saying he had committed to listening and delivering what the “community” said.
And all I kept thinking was: That’s not the job of a CEO, to implement poll results. If that’s all you want to do, then you certainly don’t need to pay an executive. Just hire a junior account manager to send out some SurveyMonkeys and be done with it.
But, here we are. I like Ironman CEO Scott DeRue, he’s personable, and I think he means well. But I don’t think this is going to work out for him, not in the long run. In the short-term, sure, people will sign up for Kona. But, based on multiple conversations, I also think he simply doesn’t know much about the historical context of the sport and what has been tried before (and certainly not about the historical progression and accessibility of women’s sports, broadly speaking), and so he appears to be overly relying on what triathletes tell him about what triathletes want. Especially the triathletes he knows personally. And people are always going to be a product of who they surround themselves with and who they listen to, and now we have gotten ourselves into one of those information echo chamber situations we keep hearing so much about.
In some ways I admire the circular logic of it all:
Ironman tells people for decades xx is very very important, the most important thing in the sport, the pinnacle; they create an entire ecosystem around xx
As that ecosystem becomes self-limiting, they try shift away from xx to create something new — but with mixed messaging IMO (ie. xx is still very important (!) but now so is yy & zz)
They then poll: What do you think is most important? People say: xx
They go: Ahh, see, not our fault, the people want xx
**yes, xx = Kona in this scenario
We’re also back now repeating the same things with the same arguments that failed before. We know they failed because we’ve been down this road so many times. Saying we’re going to grow the female participation rates first, before we give women equal access to the world championship, didn’t work to grow female participation the last time around, it’s never worked, and I don’t know why it will work this time. Saying we’ll really really make sure the pro women get equal media coverage and a clean race is nice, but if they’re in between the pro and age-group men then it’ll simply be a different kind of race, it’s just factual logistics of how coverage works. It isn’t going to be the same as when Chelsea came across the line first, is it.
I was thinking about this a lot after that Ironman survey of 10,000 women. Coming out of it, I heard so many versions of how different people feel about increasing women’s participation. But the thing is: How people feel doesn’t change facts. We don’t need to ask everyone for their opinions and then do whatever the majority says, because we can actually just look at what has worked. We can look at sports where participation is higher for women, or events and regions and what those places do differently, or historical moments before and after. We know the answer and how long it takes.
We *know* why female participation is higher in the U.S. It’s because of Title IX, which mandated equal funding and access. We can look at sports participation rates before and after that moment 50 years ago, we can compare places where it was implemented in different ways, and we can *know* that this policy is still the major driving difference in participation rates between the U.S. and everywhere else (even as those numbers globally start to finally catch up). And when that law was implemented all the same arguments you’ve heard before were made: There are fewer girls who do sports, so it’s not fair to give them equal funding to the boys; to give girls access will take resources and playing time away from boys; after there are more girls playing sports, then we’ll give them more funding. That’s how people felt, but how people felt didn’t change the facts. Or change what’s equal.
I’m tired.
That’s been my overwhelming feeling about the news. I’m tired of re-litigating debates I thought were settled, of arguing about “equal opportunity” v. “equal access” or what’s “fair.” (fwiw: Equal opportunity is a made-up term, opportunity is not quantifiable, how far back do you start tracking it. European men have the most “opportunity” to do triathlon of anyone in the world, so does giving them more spots just double down on their opportunity?) I understand why people love Kona, I watched the NBC specials, too. And, in the short-term, Ironman will likely see excitement. There’s a bunch of stats about The Kids wanting to do epic core life event things, so I’m sure they’ll be attracted to the lure. For a bit.
But, in the long run, what’s the play here. Have you ever tried to explain “proportionality” to someone outside of triathlon? That spots at a world championship aren’t handed out equally to men and women, that whether or not you get one is based on how many other people slower than you decided to do an Ironman that day. People outside of triathlon don’t understand it. Young people don’t understand it. No matter how much you say stuff about caring about women, it’s hard to convince 20-year-olds that’s true if they don’t see it at the highest level. Have you looked around at what’s happening in women’s sports? At the conversation, at all the new investment and excitement and leagues? Triathlon simply isn’t a part of that.
I felt like we were at a kind of tipping point last year. Could have gone either way. Could commit to build something new, which may or may not work, or could go back to something old. We’re going back. Some people will be excited about that. They’ll be the loudest. You’ll mostly never hear from the people who aren’t excited. They’ll just leave to do something else; there are so many other things one can do with one’s energies. I feel like I might end up being one of them.
And, so, I’ll leave you with something my mom sent me last year:
What are world records in triathlon, anyway?
Not to let Ironman overshadow their own races, but this was what I was originally going to talk about this week: the records in Texas.
At this point, given the number of overall Ironman records that have been set in the Woodlands, we can officially say it’s one of the faster courses, right? Right.
Yes, Kristian Blummenfelt is back on form and set a course record. And just like that the Norwegian Method is back on, all skepticism forgotten. And Cam Wurf set an overall Ironman bike record (3:53) on his way to an 8th place in his bid to do all the IM Pro Series races. (To which my husband said: He can’t still be on a pro cycling contract, can he?) And Gustav Iden rubber-stamped his spot to Nice, with a flat, etc.
But. The race of the day has to go to Kat.
The Kat Matthews v. Taylor Knibb showdown proved even better than we were all hoping. (Chelsea Sodaro had to pull out the day before with a toddler illness.)
I remember when Kat got 2nd at the Ironman World Championships in St. George. It was her first big (big) breakthrough. She had had the signs of one coming, we had her in our podium predictions preview for that race, but I remember standing just on the side of T2 as she ran out (and yelling something dumb at her, like ‘run your own race’). And that was when she proved she could hang with Daniela and Anne. She simply does not blow up.
Now, she’s the world record holder for an Ironman brand race. Not only did she bike just 20 seconds slower than Knibb’s Ironman bike record — and, relatedly, a whole bunch more women biked just a few minutes slower; 4:20 is the new 4:40 — but then she ran a 2:49 marathon.
Ironman world records are a bit complicated, though. As is demonstrated by the number of times they’ve had to update and edit this article I wrote back in 2021 when Kristian set a record coming out of IM Cozumel, until now that story’s turned into a kind of Frankenstein piece cobbled together.
In essence: Triathlon courses are not measured and certified the way that running races are. So records can not be certified. There’s no way to know really how exactly long a swim or bike course is compared to another swim or bike course. There’s too much variation across courses and conditions, too.
Ironman instead keeps a record of the “best times” on its courses. But it doesn’t maintain a list of non-Ironman brand races (ie. Challenge Roth, etc) or of the one-off spectacles like the Sub7/8 Project.
Which leaves us with a weird semi-list of times.
Previous best Ironman brand time: Laura Philipp’s 8:18 in IM Hamburg in 2022
Best Ironman-distance time: Anne Haug’s 8:02 in Challenge Roth in 2024
TriRating keeps the most complete records for a full list of best times. And I just learned that five of the top six women’s best times have been set in the last three years. See, we keep saying the field is getting faster and better and deeper; giving them the attention and space and resources made a difference.
See the full IM Texas results here.
Best of the rest
Valencia 70.3: I heard about Daniela Kleiser’s 1:13 run to win before I saw it. Is this how fast we have to run in halves now??
Challenge Gran-Canaria: Apparently, Jonny Brownlee is testing out the mid/long distance (and the testing went OK, with a second place).
St. Anthony’s: The historic Olympic-distance still attracts solid Olympic-distance-y fields. Both Marc Dubrick and Grace Alexander seem like they’ve really been coming into their own, both winning by about 20-30 seconds.
Results: Valencia 70.3, Peru 70.3, Challenge Gran-Canaria, Challenge Taiwan Half, St. Anthony’s, XTERRA Greece
Mark your calendars
St. George: The last running of this iconic 70.3 — it’s still a shame we’re losing what was a good race — and the start list is very very full. It includes multiple previous champs (Paula Findlay, Sam Long, Lionel Sanders), and Chelsea Sodaro taking her training from IM Texas to this start line instead.
WATCH: Saturday at 8:40 a.m. ET/5:40 a.m. PT on Outside Watch in the U.S. or proseries.ironman.com
The -ish
And a few other quick things worth knowing about this week in our sports.
There was a new women’s only marathon world record at the London Marathon. (What’s a women’s only record? Well, you see, running’s governing body recognizes that men on the race course change the outcome of the women’s race…) But, really, we all just want to know how Alex Yee did: 14th in 2:11. (Runner’s World/Instagram/BBC)
Sounds like Taylor Knibb will be doing time trial cycling nationals again. I also 100% missed the announcement earlier this year that she’s racing for Bahrain now. (Instagram/Bahrain 13)
We have dates for T100 Vegas! And start lists for T100 San Francisco. (PTO/Instagram)
Wildflower is this weekend! (Triathlete)
The second Patagonman lottery is open. (Patagonaman)
Onyerleft has started a petition to get the quadbox going on Ironman broadcasts, so you can watch split screens. Which is kinda funny. Does anyone remember that new Ironman Live broadcast interface they rolled out in Kona a couple years ago, which was really well done, and then we kinda never saw it again. (Change)
I just learned that Ironman New Zealand is the last true mass start Ironman in the world.
The Road Running World Championships were planned for San Diego this fall, but they’ve been canceled instead. (World Athletics)
Strava will give you race time predictions now based on your activities uploaded. For reference, given I still haven’t run since probably a month before the (semi-emergency) C-section, Strava thinks it would take me 31 minutes to do a 5K. Garmin thinks it would take me 25 minutes. I think, if I had to, I could do it in 21:xx. So. (Strava)
The newest new supershoe was on the feet of the winners in London: the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2. (Believe in the Run)
Hat tip to Mario: A deep dive into the Norwegian Model Revisited from the grandfather of it. (Marius Bakken)
One last thing
Let’s close out with something mean but so so funny. What a way to end your marathon.
“That’s not the job of a CEO, to implement poll results. If that’s all you want to do, then you certainly don’t need to pay an executive. Just hire a junior account manager to send out some SurveyMonkeys and be done with it.”
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
And just like that my training plans just changed…