Kona & Taupo binned

Hardly a surprise but Kona has been switched to Feb 21, and Taupo 70.3 TBC.

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At least they’ve called it reasonably early.

The BIG surprise is we’ve been offered Feb 21 or Oct 21. Already seeing that most are going Oct 21, so I can’t see Feb 21 being viable from an athlete number point of view even if everything else miraculously lines up.

So I can see Feb 21 being binned, and that’s nearly half the Oct 21 places gone already.

My wild conspiracy theory :crazy_face: is that Feb is a stalking horse for a larger run on two seperate days ‘socially distanced’ Oct 21 event. Days would have to be seperate not consecutive like 70.3 WC.

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I think Feb 21 is pretty optimistic for them, only 4 months later, unless they hope a vaccine might have been rolled out by then?

In NZ I think with their largely closed borders and small population they could have it out of the country by November this year but it will be a big risk letting all these people in so I suspect that’s based around the national government.

I’m sure they’d like a double Kona and it generates a lot of money but not sure the locals are that keen? Although I bet the local businesses and mayor would be.

gives us all an extra 4 months to Q

(then wakes up)

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How far down the line are athletes who were expecting to race in October with flights accommodation and all the expense ? Now you gotta claw back any outlay or get dates changed

Well they called that early compared with most other races…
I wonder will a Feb Kona even go ahead? I guess they’ve spoken with various authorities and are reasonably confident, but no-one can really predict anything at the minute.
I assume most of those who have qualified will defer to October 2021, so how will they make Feb viable? Will they allow virtual qualification? Or will Feb be a smaller more socially distanced race? And what if Feb can’t go ahead? What’ll happen to Oct? I wonder if they will look to trial a double-day race in Kona in Oct to see how it goes and then try to make it a double day event in future as well - more qualifying slots, more money, but how to win the locals over on this…? If they don’t trial a double day event then it’ll be very difficult to qualify in 2021 as there’ll be so few slots available.
And will Taupo ever go ahead?
Interesting times for Ironman…

FTFY

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Which qualifying race :rofl: that will actually happen.

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To be fair yeah. “Interesting” times for everyone. And by interesting I mean unprecedented and tough…

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Re the double day Kona I guess IM would love to do it, more or less twice the field for similar outlay.

I know locals hate the event, but may be willing on a one off basis as one slightly longer circus may be preferable to the whole gig rolling into town in two seperate ooccasions. If the tourist numbers are down they may be more willing, it will be hammering their economy at the moment. Be an easier sell as ‘socially distant’ as well if they drop numbers a bit on each day.

And once they do it as a one off…

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

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I’m sure they are thinking $$ for a double day champs. But they’d have to do transition tricks if it’s on consecutive days.

The split transition at Nice worked fairly well and meant T1 was fairly empty by dinner time.

Kona had split transitions for a long time; T2 was Kona Surf Hotel in Keahou iirc. They ran into ‘The Pit’ before going up Ali’i Drive.

There was an article the other day about how the 14 day quarantine rule was being enforced in Hawaii. Basically, hotel key cards were being enabled to open the door on arrival but then they’d disable so if anyone left their room they wouldn’t be able to get back in :open_mouth: . The state government there is obviously taking the risk seriously.

I don’t know if Hawaii or NZ would be keen on letting in large numbers of foreigners until the covid risk is over. Can you run a race if a number of the countries that your competitors come from are still on a travel blacklist?

In terms of a double day championship, there seems to be a big issue in the US with any event that results in road closures on a Sunday that might make it difficult to get to church. I think events also rely on church groups to act as volunteers for marshaling and aid stations.

I think Kona would struggle to have events on consecutive days. Maybe they could have a “fast” race on Friday which would mean the pier would be clear earlier for people racking for the following day. But restocking aid stations and volunteer fatigue would be an issue. Maybe they’d do Saturday/Monday? Maybe they’d clear the pier after T1 and bike collection would be elsewhere? Hope they don’t do split transitions - PITA!

I started a reply saying split transitions are okay if it’s just a bag drop; but of course they never are due to bike collection. Yeah, they’re a PITA with the trudging or driving about.

Some races they are only a few hundred metres apart and that’s fine :+1: They could do that in Kona, and have T2 in a parking lot or fields away from the pier. Around by the aquatic centre?

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The old IMOZ at Forster had a split transition by about 3kms, it worked very well. IM Cairns has one as well which reading the forums, seems like a cluster with shuttle buses, bookings etc .

A split transition wouldn’t put me off doing a race bu it would have to be a race I really wanted to do.

Regensburg was borderline PITA, but I had a car there, and took a taxi to the start. T2 was by the finish, so no logistics once you were done.

Frankfurt is probably the biggest PITA of the ones I’ve done; particularly as it’s normally baking hot.

Isn’t Bolton split too? (not that I have the slightest inclination to do imuk