• Nice finish line seemed quite dull compared to Kona

Incredibly boring run. No hills, no souls crushing energy lab to create self doubt in the leader made this race the most boring of the 3 venues.

Def preferred the race and course dynamics of Kona and St G to this.

Also pretty big difference between waking up at midnight to see the race and staying up late. But I don’t begrudge that as every event has time issues for someone and NA get their shit slot this time.

Sure does, but I think that has more to do with the men and women being split. Hawaiians have been abundantly clear that they don't want IM on the island whereas Nice seems to be entirely indifferent at worst.

Great race today. They should continue to rotate the WC locations.

  

Swim looked nice.

Bike route infinitely better than Kona (on TV the bike route at Kona is as boring AF) and Nice doesn't let the draft cheaters prosper.

Run looks boring - need to see if they can take that up a notch.

But overall... as an observer....move the Women to Nice too permanently and sack off Kona as last century's place that is a total PITA place to get to and waaaay to expensive.

Yip that was me. I think it was Rappstar that said it years ago ITU athletes were good cyclists, IM athletes were strong cyclists. I think in long course there has to be more technical aspects to bike course selection along with the Kona's of this world.

I liked Nice today but honestly think there needs to be a rotation of more than 2 venues moving forward. Nice and Kona plus alternative venues. StG would be in there, maybe SA or Aus. And of course there are loads of venues in Europe (I would love Lanza!)

Are you there in Nice? I don’t think we can give an accurate depiction of the venue unless you were there. We need to hear from the people who are in nice and have been to Kona.

Also, Kona has spectators on the run for 8 miles of the course on a 4 mile stretch of road. Not sure I would consider the run at Kona having lots of spectators.

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blog

Which is exactly what I was expecting, opening this thread!

I have raced both venues, but only one as a WC

Since the early 80s I have always looked forward with great anticipation to the world championship races in Kona. This year that anticipation wasn’t there.

We will have our new guy, Brad Williams, as third man in on the podcast this week to talk about this very topic.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Awesome ❤️

If the only thing to come out of this is that rotating the WC is a good idea, I think that’s a good outcome.

Ironman should have a “test event” early-ish the prior year, and only offer the WC event as a championship event the year of the championship.

Also, move the men’s and women’s back to the same location. Do the pros race a different day (both m & w) and amateurs (both m & w) the other. I suspect as far as volunteers, the age group race requires a lot more. It also would allow for the host city to open back up a lot sooner.

Agree with all the points of the OP.

This race was so great to watch compared to Kona. Favors the most complete athletes and wasn't a draft fest like Kona often is.

I like the idea of rotating but if they don't, the current 1y in Kona / 1y in Nice seems like the best we can have although it would be much much better to have both men and women together (speaking about the finish line being "dull", I really wonder how the finish is going to look for the women this year).

Agreed! I think it would be cool if they adopted the NFL Super Bowl or Olympic format where the cities bid to host the world championship. It doesn’t favor one type of athlete and gets the community more involved

The swim was amazing to spectate. I was blown away by how good the coverage of the bike leg was - I found Kona so boring to watch the bike. This bike course was more exciting than most Grand Tour stages. The twists and turns seemed endless and must have been exhausting over 112 miles. The video footage was just mind blowingly beautiful with rock overhangs, huge drops, the meadows on the plateau. The run: they had fans cheering 100% of the run course with ocean views. I actually enjoyed it and loved that the athletes could see each other after each turn. Last, definitely like the idea of rotating the WC course. And I know this won’t be popular, but I even think the current plan to always have a men or women WC race in Kona every year can be done away with. Rotate back to Kona every 5-8 years. There are just too many other courses and this Nice course and WC race was so good. Kona feels stale in comparison.I get that tradition is more important to some people, to feel a part of a storied past, to have some connection to that history. I agree with Dan that Kona is better off like the Boston marathon; or maybe like the Spring Classics. But the WC’s in cycling aren’t tied to the spring classics; the grand tour stages change each year and they sometimes revisit past stages. I’m confident the IM WC’s will be better off and having just stayed up all night watching this race and having watched every Kona race since the late 80’s (NBC and then live streaming since 2001), I feel this race was more than a breath of fresh air, it was a double lung transplant.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

"format where the cities bid to host the world championship"

Be careful what you wish for.

This would most likely lead to WC location chosen by highest bidder, not best course or best facilities or best amenities. It will go to the location with the deepest pockets that wants to host the event, not necessarily the best location that wants to host it.

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Boots
Fleet Feet Rochester, NY
Fleet Feet Buffalo, NY
YellowJacket Racing, Rochester, NY

Love the idea of rotating every 3-4 years and have men’s and women’s same location. I wonder if Kona would reconsider 2 days if they only had to tolerate it every 3-4 years. Would be less total disruption then once every year.

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Let food be thy medicine...

My experience.

The swim was pretty nice. It was comparable to Kona. The visibility was great. It was beautiful and scenic.

The bike course is super duper awesome.
Amazing canyons. Amazing mountains.
Lots of fascinating cliff side villages. (The bike course didn't go through the center of most of these. I would love to take a couple of days and ride the course visiting all the places we were near,)

The run was hot and repetitive. Obviously, though the the Promenade al Inglais is a marque destination. I am not convinced the run was that much cooler today than Kona usually is.
Maybe 3 degrees cooler!. And a little less humid. But no shade at all! And less of a cooling breeze.


The crowd was awesome!
The number of people along the courses was similar to Kona. Maybe a little more!

The atmosphere felt better though. Lots and lots of people cheering for me!
Even though I knew almost no-one.



My race- I took the climbs easier than I probably needed to. I was able to ride the flats and the decents faster than I thought.
It was more fun, and less terrifying than I anticipated.
I do believe there were some wrecks.

I don't seem to cope with heat very well anymore. (Or even worse).
I think I was using to much energy trying too cool off.
And I was unable to digest enough nutrition.

Maureten, the watermelon was good.

226er Race Day did not sit well at all in the stomach.

(Came up once).

Overall- Okay result.
I got passed by Vinokourov on one of the early decents.
The guy put 1 minute into me on a 4 minute decent.

I will race here again with the hope of a top ten AG spot when I age up.

That’s a really good idea. I do think having the men’s and women’s races the same weekend is better for the sport. BUT, we also have to see what it’s like having the races a month apart to see if it better highlights the women’s race.
And to the other comment, fully agree on no bidding for WC’s. With that, we’d get races in Bahrain and Rwanda … I want to see a Lanzarote, Barcelona/Girona, Andorra, S Africa, Argentina, Norway, Lake Placid, Canada, Monterrey Mexico, NZ WC’s.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Awesome job and enjoyed reading your recap!! Especially about the descents - they looked intense and tight with cones making it even tighter.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

I thought it was brilliant.

I think I'm in the minority - I'm not in favour of rotating, but in favour of the alternating Kona/Nice approach.

Reasons:

- Nice seems unique on the circuit in having potential to be as iconic as Kona: the stunning swim/bike, the decades of long course pedigree and the nice contrast to Kona as a race and setting. Could be wrong, but none of the others seem to have the same mix

- Just two locations would support the further enrichment of that pedigree and aura, as further epic races and memories are added layer by layer

- Reasonable coverage of the time zones and athlete concentrations between the two, acknowledging neither is brilliant for the APAC athletes

Undecided:

- Split male/female does seem like a downside. It's quite fun to have mixed races, and can see this format is a stitch-up for (the probably very few) high performing athlete couples.

I'm a big fan of tri overall, of Ironman, of independent long course races (fortunate to have raced Norseman, and others) and the history of the sport. Still dedicated to racing and training at 53 and plan to continue as long as I can. Always excited for "Kona WC Day". Have always watched most of the whole damned thing. And... finally raced there last year.

As a fan, have been open to potential of different course for WCs, etc.

Here's my N=1 from today:

• Underwhelmed to lead up of event. Just didn't feel the same.
• Didn't bother watching today, don't know why.
• Kudos to SL...can't help but feel - well, let's see you finish at Kona.
• Personally, have zero interest in trying to qual for a WC in Nice, or anywhere, really.
• But still have strong desire to KQ again.

Maybe I'm an outlier, don't know.

Only thing I'll push back on, you win Kona, you win StG, you win Nice....you are the IRONMAN world champion. There shouldn't be "well it's not kona" if you don't do it in Kona. Your a fucking world champion wherever they place the world champs. Now of course Kona will always have a special place in likely everyone's heart and of course being the mecca of the sport, I'm sure everyone wants to win there. But if your suggestion it has to be validated with an Kona win or else meh...I'm not with you on that. Again I get that Kona is a "special place" but I don't think that invalidates other WC wins by anyone most especially as the sport likely moves off Kona as the permanent home.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Having watched and cheered at the race in Nice today, the spectators areas weren't organised as well as they could have been.

For the swim it was nearly impossible to see anything if not from a very far distance.
Also, because Nice it's so flat, if you weren't right on the railing you couldn't really see anything so people were spread out.
The areas with the big screens had really little space for people because of crowd management.
So it may be that from the TV you could never see big masses of people.

Compared to Kona you do see a big mass of people at one location but then the rest of the course is just empty.

I couldn't really say one is better than the other from this point of view.
I do feel PTO and Super League triathlon organised spectators area much better although the size of these races isn't really comparable.

(Lots of good thing about this event. As I said elsewhere, as a European it was amazing to go to Nice for the weekend by train just to see the race)

He did finish at Kona, last year. He was leading the race the entire day until Gustav caught him with like 5km or so to go, and he finished second. Don't think he has anything to prove about his abilities there.