Hi All,

It’s another battle. After the poorly thought through changes of the 5% and 8% rules…the WTC are looking to lump us with a whole new set. Here’s the summary:

Overview/Rationale
1) creating a points based World Championship qualifying system for pros
2) assure that the most deserving athletes qualify
3) limit the number of athletes in order to assure fair and exciting racing

Qualifying
1) Accrue points from maximum 5 races
2) At least one race must be an Ironman, max three 70.3
3) No points carry over, aside from Kona (but an athlete must complete another full Ironman)
4) Top 50 male, top 30 female offered slots after the final race late august (Sept 1 deadline)
5) Wild cards to be offered at WTC discretion
6) 70.3 will count towards Kona, but IM not counting towards 70.3 qualifying

Points/Prize Money
Points will be accrued according to size of race/purse (as per table below):
1) Championship Events: Both Ironman ($100,000+ paying through 10th) and 70.3 ($75,000+ paying through 10th).
Including Asia Pacific 70.3, U.S. 70.3, European 70.3 and regional Ironman championships to be announced.

2) Ironman Series Events: Ironman Series events will offer total prize purses in either:
$25,000 (Paying through 5th) or $75,000 (Paying through 8th)

3) 70.3 Series Events: Ironman 70.3 Series events will offer total prize purses in either:
$15,000 (Paying through 5th) or $50,000 (Paying through 8th)

Additional
1) A one day licence (US $500 for full, $250 for half)
2) Licence waiver scholarship program

Hre’s my thoughts:

To the WTC team,

I feel there are many issues with the current proposal.

1. Not enough time has been given to Pro athletes to comment and discuss this proposal.
2. One week should not be enough time to go through and change this scheme. I would be surprised if you could announce a new scheme that has been changed tangibly by July 9th.
3. 50 slots for the Pro men is nowhere near enough under the current scheme- the women’s filed has been cut by 40% (50 to 30), so there should be at least 60 male slots.
4. If an athlete can podium an IM (regional or US/Europe) they should be good enough to get a start at IM Hawaii.
5. There is too much disadvantage for regional athletes (i.e Australia) under the proposed scheme.
6. There is too much advantage for 70.3 athletes. IM should qualify IM and 70.3 should qualify for 70.3. They are totally different races. You cannot qualify for the world marathon champs by running a half- why should we make the qualifying a joke when the whole purpose is to make it a serious world championship?
7. The should be a nationality skew- i.e. a minimum number of competitors from each country
8. Why the big push to cut and tighten the pro field, when there are still a slew of places available to the US public via the lottery, CEO challenge and even ebay? If there is going to be an improved standard of qualifying, it should be that way across the board.
9. The new system does not support younger athletes and allow them to move through the ranks easily. This move simply increases the gap in the haves and have nots.

I’d like to support Chrissie Wellington’s statement and most of the points she made, aside from the numbers of athletes as above.

I applaud the move to consult and to increase prize money.

regards
Mitchell Anderson

Finally, here are the links to some excellent comments:

http://www.dede-griesbauer.com/updates_news/

http://www.firstoffthebike.com/features/1478-chrissie-wellington-weighs-in-on-the-draft-wtc-rules

More to come in this months mag…then next months.

see you on the road,

Mitch