Seems like lots of big news regarding Ironman this week since I decided to stop myself, the company has fallen apart!
Ironman UK has been cancelled
Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire has been cancelled
The CEO has resigned
Any races being cancelled in the US?
The ones Iām aware of:
Heās got a Board seat and isnāt going to work elsewhere. Not sure āresignā is the appropriate term here, especially when heās noted itās a retirement
Messik stepping down. Thatās wild. Iām almost tempted to go and see what the mass hysteria this will have caused over at the slowtwitch forum
Godspeed entering that cesspool. 
The headline of āretirementā is less intriguing. Gotta get those clicks
āChanged roleā is even more accurate and even less interesting.
He aināt CEO no more!
Just go listen to the triathlon hour interview before speculating
I cannot stand Jack Kelly, is there a transcript?
Just listen to it
Nah, that interview went absolutely nowhere IMO. Came off as way too defensive on both sides for a useful discussion, plus Kelly takes so damn long to ask a question that I donāt feel It actually covered much ground.
The ST thread was actually decent- one of the things that site has going for it is that thereās a lot of race directors and people involved in the āback endā of things, so you can actually get a glimpse into the other side rather than just People being Mad About Things. Better than the usual fb comment section pile-on, though thatās hardly much of an endorsement.
EDIT: apparently thereās a new podcast, canāt speak to that one.
Yes. The new podcast specifically about the topic at hand
This seems new as of today:
Oh @mcneese.chad , lots of people come here for the desire to never go to slowtwitch again.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
(Not me, they actually do a good podcast)
Thereās rumours about IM Lanzarote too. Apparently still being negotiated and will happen but still.
Iāve heard on GTN that Mont Tremblant, Tulsa and Coeur DāAlene have been cancelled.
I know Coeur DāAlene just announce a new 70.3 contract for 2024, 2025, and 2026
This years 140.6 participation seemed lower than previous years. They moved the full around a few times, was in June, then August (which is very hot), and then put it in rotation with STG and Canada. Then C19 hit, and they moved it back to June this year. The full CDA appears to be canceled for now.
I just found out that a local female triathlete was just offered a spot at Kona this year, well after she had completed her full IM.
Sounds like they are having a hard time filling out the field in Konaā¦which is not something I ever thought I would say (but there are also 2x+ as many slots available for the womenā¦so maybe that makes sense?)
Yea one of my training partners raced Chattanooga last September and got the email about a Kona slot a few weeks ago. She is doing Mont Tremblant and has no desire to race another Ironman a few weeks later.
I generally feel Ironman gets a lot of unwarranted crap/pissing and moaning thatās coming from people that just want to complainā¦ I also absolutely commend triathlon (and Ironman) as our sport has always been one of the leaders as far as equality from a male/female perspective, as compared to other womens sports - especially at the professional level.
That said, itās a pretty big failure on Ironmans part in understanding the demographics of their participants. The male/female ratio for triathlon has always been 75/25 for males across shorter distances, and then it goes towards 80/20 and 85/15 as you get towards the full distance. Ironman also failed to realize a huge number of female participants in 2022 in Kona were due to people deferring their slots from 20 and 21 - it was not representative of people who qualified for 2022 in 2022. This is also true for the male side.
Hawaii was a tough ticket when it was capped around 1800 a decade or so ago, and that is with an approximate 2/1 male to female split. Ironman made a huge mistake in assuming there would be 1200 (in this example) additional women that would do anything for a slot - they were wrong, which makes Hawaii participation look bad this year.
Ironman also made a mistake in going to the side of thinking amateur males would do anything to race the Ironman WC, regardless of location. For the pros, a rotating course might make sense, but for amateurās the number of folks whoāve accepted Nice slots indicates we actually do care about it being in Kona.
Iām actually more concerned about how much money is going to be lost next year when the men have Kona (which will sell out), but the women have to go to Nice - my assumption here is there will be even less slots accepted for that on the womenās side than for Kona this year.
Hopefully this is a 2 year experiment and it goes back to men and women on the same Saturday in Hawaii in 25. My guess is with Ironmans cancelling of so many long distance events that theyāre hoping to take it back in the direction where itās capped at ~2000 participants on the peer, and then weāll have the same exclusive/coveted Hawaii as before.
Lots of rambling, hope it made some sense. Also, letās not forget Ironmans hand was forced by Hawaii this year at the last minute. The way it was supposed to go in 23 was the men would race on Thursday and the women Saturday, but after 2022 Hawaii county said ānopeā and Ironman was forced to scramble, making this cluster$$$$ look even worse than it already is for the sport