I don’t disagree with you in general. And see the same with running race self seeding, and it annoys me too.
But on the swim, it’s just a lot more dangerous. There’s something akin to social media in mass start swims. The anonymity turns a large number of people into utter wankers. I do get your adrenaline buzz point … I get more of a buzz in a 150 person wave start than for a 70.3, so yes, given the thread title, a rolling start does “sanitise” things. But being a decent enough swimmer, I think a mass start would cost me upwards of 10 minutes over 3.8k. As mentioned above, unless you are right out the front, you just aren’t actually swimming. You’re surviving.
Maybe I’m weak, but I’ve been intrigued by Lanza for years, but the descriptions of the swim by the people I know who’ve done it have always put me off. Even Nikki Bartlett (FPRO) talked on the OA Podcast to Helen about it being dangerous and her getting swum over and dunked, and frankly being a little scared. I’m all for racing in general, but I want to swim. Not try and avoid drowning.
I’m not sure I would class Wales as a mass start, not in the same way Austria was & Lanza is. Probably takes 30-40 mins at Wales for everyone to get in the water.
I’d say less than that but can’t be sure. I line up at 1.20 board and it takes 8-10mins, maybe there’s a whole huge queue behind me but it seems to move along ok.
Again, I can only use my one Ironman experience of rolling starts (all other were Mass), and it seemed like a success to me. I seeded myself about 200 people back in the sub 65 pen, and came out relaxed in 64 mins with very little biff; then I got onto the bike and again even early-on, the bike packs were minimal… the wind probably helped that!
I’ve done a few 70.3 AG waves starts, and again have no issue with them; they are the best solution imho; but you need to get the AG/gender order right, and have bigger than 2 min gaps!
I can’t comment on Lanza and Austria as haven’t done them (and don’t recall the starts from various media off the top of my head). But it was definitely not a 30/40 min gap when i did it in 2013. Everyone lined up on the beach in a wide block and flew into the water. 5-10 min absolute max i would say. But then i was in the water, so who knows! It was very busy still.
My experience of the newer (2018?!) style of rolling starts. Has been positive, where you seed yourself and then x amount of people are let into the sea at 10 second or so periods. The only issue is where people seed themselves too quickly and then you’re overtaking a lot of swimmers.
I haven’t had to do this at a full though only 70.3. Both Wales and South Africa had self seeded timed pens and once the gun went off everyone makes their way into the sea. This obviously takes time for everyone to get in though. I’m not a sub 60 swimmer so wouldn’t put myself at the front anyway. Both these starts have been fine for me.
My only true mass iron starts have been at the Outlaw where i think I’ve done a good job of seeding myself correctly. Was a bit of biff last year but not getting swim over though.
I’ll echo @adam ‘s comment about Outlaw, but with a nod to @stenard
I bobbed around the mass start in 70 minutes in 2019 and the biff was bad. Previous years I was done in under an hour, so didn’t experience any biff at all.
If only Ironman already had something setup which recognises good AG athlete performances over the previous year and gives those athletes an acronym, special transition racking area, logo on their number (which already has their AG on it too so people know whether to race them or not) and snazzy coloured hat to wear in the swim
I’d suggest; Pro start, followed by AWA start (for those who want to), followed by rolling 5 sec gap AG starts self seeded by estimated swim time.
Done.
All the logistical leg work is already sorted, the amount of AWAs per race is sufficiently small that it would not be absolute carnage, and by merit they would tend to be better overall, more experienced triathletes, if not swimmers. In which case they could choose to start in the rolling start based on their estimated swim time if not confident, or just accept being caught by faster swimmers starting in the rolling start afterwards if they wanted the race. There wouldn’t be an advantage starting in the rolling start (that I can see, other than massive weather changes) as they’d be working through the bikes and business in T1 as mentioned earlier, so saying all AWAs can race for Worlds Qualification would work, regardless of where they start.
True! But then presumably they wouldn’t be the ones racing for slots anyway
Also on that note, not sure I agree about qualifying to earn a WC slot with a previous race anyway* - marathon entries (London GFA & champs, BQ etc) can be gained at any measured marathon event. While I appreciate different conditions from starting an hour later may have an impact on the result, would it be more than, for example, a 20 minute slower swim, busier transition and bike course etc? Over the course of an IM?
*Edit: I mean doing a race, to then be able to earn a WC slot at your next race
Slightly, but not exactly. You can only have three results to count, and to get above a minimum score, you have to be within a reasonable distance of the AG winner (likely finishing under 14hrs for a full, and 6hrs for a half). You can probably get bronze with one decent full performance too.
I overtook loads of AWA people during the swim & bike in Hamburg. Most on the bike were younger AGs who’d overcooked the bike and were fading on lap 2.
from what i’ve seen most AWA athletes are MOP’ers who have done 2 or more fulls and a half in the year… anything ok-ish, but middle of the field x 3 is enough to get you bronze AWA.
I don’t disagree. But if you are a KQ potential, then one prior full would also get you AWA status. Which would serve the purpose of the “qualification” style approach Hammerer was suggesting.
