IM Championship leaving Hawaii?
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CAcyclingFAN posted 2 years ago.
I think if they were to take it from Hawaii they would need to rotate it to keep it fresh and exciting.
I am still up in the air on if it is a good idea or not. I few things that I can think of are.
1. Good for athletes that normally don't do as well in hot and humid conditions
2. Good for WTC - They can have 2 premier events each year (Hawaii and World Championship)
3. Or bad for WTC, Mdot races lose the mystique of Hawaii so other IM distance events pick up ground on WTC Mdot events
Seems to me that the WTC is at the top of their game right now as far as races selling out. How does it go........If it ain't broke don't try to fix it?
When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived. - Thoreau
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Tribro posted 2 years ago.
I don't think it'll happen. There is such a history and lore about Hawaii and the Ironman. I think it'd lose some of it's draw. If anything maybe it would move to another island.
If it did have to leave then I still shoot for one place ot hold. Like Tour de France etc. I think it's needs to be in a specific area each time. Even though France is a country :). But it would have to have some sort of extra difficulty to it. Like the heat and winds of Hawaii, I think that's part of the race. So I'd move it to Bend Or. The you'd have Altitude and mountains. Anyway my 2 cents...
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RV posted 2 years ago.
Hope Tribro is right. Lots of tradition and mystique there. Wouldn't be the same somewhere else.
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
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PrinceofClydes posted 2 years ago.
I've had my sights set on racing the IM World Champs at Hawaii for 13 years now.
It is my dream to run at Kona like I saw Mark Allen do back in 1993. It would take all the impetus out of my training to qualify if they moved it now.
However, it is easy to see that the event has begun to outgrow the venue. Maybe they would like to move it to a site that could accommodate more athletes on course: IMC can handle 2250. but Kona only takes 1700. They need more slots to continue to grow worldwide.
That may mean more M-Dot races with more qualifying slots around the world. Good for us, good for WTC, but the loss of tourism dollars for Kona every October would be huge.
If they move it, I predict there would be another promoter hosting an iron distance event there just because the place has become so closely identified with ironman for the last 20 years.
and I'd still want to race in Kona.
Geoff
"Pain doesn't last, chicks dig scars, glory is forever!"
- Shane Falco.
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deepbluex posted 2 years ago.
Moving this off Kona would destroy all the mystique. There are already great and respectable Ironman races all over the world and sure they're all the same distances but you mention Kona and that's the name that sticks. That's the place that people speak of with heightened attention and heartbeats. Names like "The Energy Lab" have weight for the crazies who love the sport.
Move the world championship off Hawaii and you just won't have the same impact. Another island or location within the same island would be alright. There's just something so mythical about the idea of so many great hopeful athletes congregating in this small eden-like island isolated in the middle of the vast ocean that just evokes something epic.
I think this is a case where you have to consider that image is everything and you can't build that kind of image very easily. There's real value to the tradition and popular awareness of the event that it would be a real pity to break it all down and start from scratch again. The sport of triathlon is still a bit of a marginal one when it comes to popular awareness compared to the standard stuff you see on ESPN - yet the Kona Ironman is the one event that people who don't know much about triathlon will recognize.
I think a lot of us doing sprints and olys dream one day to share the same roads as Faris al Sultan et al. It would be a real waste if that hallowed path is abandonned because a few people can't work out the logistics of race day conflicting with a cruise ship docking schedule.
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CAcyclingFAN posted 2 years ago.
If size were the only issue I would think they could run it two days in a row. Maybe women one day and men the other and then flip-flop it each year. They would would then be able to have 3000+ racers and make a bunch more money. There are lots of events now that have races on sat and sun. I am sure they could manage.
When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived. - Thoreau
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tri-ac posted 2 years ago.
the question seems to be: does Kona have to be the championship?
you still have a race there that has all the qualities you guys are mentioning. but why not let the championship float? i understand from the forum that Lanzarote is considered quite tough...
just a beginner's $.02
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deepbluex posted 2 years ago.
tri-ac wrote:
the question seems to be: does Kona have to be the championship?you still have a race there that has all the qualities you guys are mentioning. but why not let the championship float? i understand from the forum that Lanzarote is considered quite tough...
just a beginner's $.02
You'll probably find a range of how attached people are to the tradition of having the championship stay at Kona. I'm definitely on the "It has to stay or it's the end of the world" camp.
If the championship floats, then it floats. The Olympics do that - always a different venue every 4 years and it works for what it is because that's what it has always done.
I just think the Ironman being born in Hawaii and having the world championship race come "home" to Hawaii for 25+ years justifies having a good look at what it really means to so many people for so long before making any decisions.
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Anton posted 2 years ago.
Yeah...I brought up the subjet on the sub-forum "Ironman Distance" two days ago..
Other world Champs bounce around why not IM?
Really I don't care one way or the other I wont get there unless some freak slot luck falls in my lap...
Is it or Isn't it about the distance?
"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" - Vincent Van Gogh
My Blog: http://anton.trifuel.net
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christri25 posted 2 years ago.
they should keep the race in KONA ! to much history.
Chris
``It's not as if I'm going to sit around and be a fat slob,''
Lance Armstrong 2005
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PrinceofClydes posted 2 years ago.
re: history.
tri-ac has a point. There are people training for IM today who have never seen Scott, Molina, Allen, Tinley race, who have no idea of the history and still think it would be great to qualify and go to the IM World Championships even if it was held in Bulawayo.
There are brand new Dodger fans who have no idea they used to be in Brooklyn.
There are new triathletes who never knew that the race used to be draft-free..
anyway, once you have moved the race to a new venue or have it float, it will develop new mystique and the romance will always be to cross that line and hear that guy say,
"Josette Doe, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!"
whether the race is in Cleveland or Galveston, Tx or Dublin, Ireland.
PoC
still wants to race in Kona
"Pain doesn't last, chicks dig scars, glory is forever!"
- Shane Falco.
I noticed over on slowtwich.com there is an article that discusses the possibility that the IM championship could possibly be moving to a different location.
I've got two questions:
1) What would you guys think if they moved the race?
2) If they were to move the race, where do you think they should move it to?