I agree. There are certainly some surprising results for individual age groups but we still need more races before we can reach reliable conclusions.
It was really interesting to me that Kalmar had 10 M50-54 in the top 40 and Copenhagen had 1 when they both seem to be fast courses. It suggests to me that there is a lot of variability in field strength for individual age group between races - much more than I expected.
I also would point out that under the old system M50-54(3) would miss out on a slot when doing a 9:13. That is a crazy fast time for 50+ and seems like as bad an outcome as any of the people who miss out using the new system.
I do have the feeling that fast courses will disproportionally favour the older male age groups and perhaps harder courses will favour younger athletes. Time will tell.
One thing that I do like about the new system that you mentioned earlier in that each race now will have a single cutoff time that should stay relatively consistent. Everyone will then be able to translate that to the age graded time they need to achieve and have higher confidence that if they turn in shape to beat their time then they are unlikely to miss out because a couple of guns have raced in their age group that day.
I am very curious how this plays out but the results so far are saying to me that race specific variation in specific age groups was larger than I appreciated.
My only strong conclusion right now is that I have no chance of qualifying at a European event .
Its nice to see that M50-54 is different but this is instantly counter-corrected imho by M55-59 having 6 qualifiers in Copenhagen lol
More interesting perhaps if you group them in 3 groups each, very arbitrarily admittely:
M18 to M34: Kalmar 6 and Copenhagen 9
M35 to M49: Kalmar 8 and Copenhagen 5
M50 to M64: Kalmar 11 and Copenhagen 8
Every time I read your response, i get the bias that you believe the best of the best raced a race and that the factors used by IM skew it.
Ever considered in your bias with AGās that the best of the best do not race every race, being this close the Nice and Kona, many already have their slot and will not be racing?
You can only compare apples with apples if the best of the best of ALL AGās race at the same time, otherwise there will always be a skew one way or another, as one AG might be the best of the best that day and another just regular bucket list athletes.
This had been shown a number of times with regard to NA & EU races and discrepancies to certain AGās, where certain AGās are stronger. So whilst this is the first year, there maybe some outliers but I suspect it will all average out over time/races and as each year this is implemented, it will be more refined.
Oh, no I donāt believe that. Thereās always variability in the competitiveness from race to race, thatās clear. And I believe there are obvious regional discrepancies as well. IF, big if, the results continue to skew towards older men, then I think questioning the discounting mechanism needs to be considered.
We have 5 years of stats from around the world that all of this is based on. I doubt that after 2026, we will see any meaningful change in relative speed of the top 20 percent per age group, so this system will deliver the same top 20 percent because genetics of humans did not change, and how the top people around the world train and race did not change and largely the economic strata they come from from inside their countries likely wonāt change.
All this changes is who is in the back 80 percent of the age groups. Some age groups will grow slightly some will shrink slightly , it wonāt change the podium performances at all at Kona.
Also people here are getting caught up in the outright rankings. We donāt know who actually took slots and the same applied in the old system. Iāve gone to Kona finishing 15th in my age group at IM France in the old system, so go figure!
I think the rounding depends on the other AGs too, might be 3.
On a different note, does anyone have the 70.3 Hradec Kralove list? Itās not on the IM app.
I know of someone that got 10th in the F30-34 that got a slot. 1h+ slower than AG winner
I would like to invite you to Ironman Canada Ottawa if you are young and fast! Surely you will beat all the fast old men and women around here HAHA!
But to your point, not IM related but at Muskoka 70.3 I roughly knew that if I did a 5:30 that would translate to a 4:30 which historically if I looked at results and subtract 5 min off each age group performance 30-64, you barely get 40 people on that course beating that time.
All you need to do is go to historical results and I assume for IM you substract around 10-12 min per age group all the way to 64 to see the virtual performance pool (basically how may people made what virtual time). For example @timbasile converged to a 9:15 graded time at IM Ottawa which I believe was the 50th place agexgender graded
For posterity, I went from 10:06 chip time to 9:46 age/gender grade as an M40, which was 144th on the age/gender grade scale.
In the other thread I believe youāre referencing, I noted that I would have been scored as a ~9:15 as an M45, which would have put me in the KQ range (50-55ish).
I turn 45 next year, and havenāt yet hit my plateau/decline, so it was more a comment on āI think I have this next yearā (though its a bit moot since I donāt think Iām doing Ottawa next year)
Havenāt IM already stated that the discounting mechanism will be reviewed every year and adjusted? That was my understanding!
So if there is an outlier skew to older men or a particular AG, then it will be adjusted the following yearā¦ and will continually be adjusted every year
From the IM press release and highlighted in bold
*HOW DID WE DEVELOP THE NEW SYSTEM?
We began exploring new approaches in 2019 in collaboration with Sportstats, one of our premier timing partners with deep expertise in this area. Due to the pandemic in 2020, these ideas were put on hold as we changed the location and format of the IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship events to best serve our athletes. Over the past few months, inspired by our return to Kona for the IRONMAN World Championship and informed by extensive feedback from our athletes, we restarted this work with the goal of creating a system that is entirely based on performance. We considered and tested different approaches. Most importantly, the new system is principled and consistent with our aim to reward the most competitive athletes. In addition, the new system has shown through rigorous testing to be robust across a large number of races and across regions. To ensure the system achieves our goals and performs as expected ā and to provide IRONMAN with a forum for regular feedback on the new system ā we are creating an IRONMAN Championship Competition Advisory Group that will consist of athletes, who meet regularly to review the system, and work together to identify opportunities for continuous improvement. We are committed to transparency with regards to the new system and will be open with our community about what we learn on the journey. *
Tl;dr - Donāt hold your breath.
Think, not in that quote, is:
". . . KonaĀ® Standard was created. It is based on a rolling five-year period of results from the top 20% of finishers for each age group at IRONMAN World Championship events in Kona, Hawai`i. These top 20% finisher times are used to determine a benchmark for each age group by gender. After normalizing the results to account for any outliers, we arrived at a global āKona Standardā for each age group and gender that can be used to assess the relative performance of athletes at any race around the world (i.e., age-graded finish times)."
2016-2022 (5 Konas)
If adjustment to the age-factors is to be based on data, rather than the actual system being revised, then there will be no more data available till the IMWC in 2026. The implication is that a revision could be made for the start of the 2028 qualification period (August 2027).
For @pier87 - tried hours ago - magic fail
Found this in the hat.
Thanks for trying, numbers look all over the place on that link. But perhaps someone that has a better attention span than me can sort it out (plus Iām at work )
Dear Lord the top AGer was 7:49??? I know Copenhagen is a legit distance course too, fast conditions for the run but man oh man. The performances are absolutely nuts the last year. Assuming he didnāt have much help on the bike vs the pros sitting in the draft zone, thatās competitive with the top 5 overall.
I think using Kona Standard itself as the only race to generate the age-graded percentages is a bad idea.
For one, older athletes tend to be less heat-tolerant, so the standard will probably boost these athletes more than if it was averaged across multiple races.
Plus, Kona is often the 2nd race people do in a year and at least some of the people there are backing off a bit.
The 70.3 system is better because the championship location rotates. It also benefits from having the performance pool is separated by gender. But thatās easy to do when you have separate races for men and women - itās just a 50/50 split.
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