Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016: Results and Kona Qualification Analysis

Latest statistics for Ironman Maastricht-Limburg

Back to Europe and the Netherlands for the second race of the weekend – Ironman Maastricht-Limburg. Now that Maastricht is established as part of the European Ironman calendar the number of entrants has doubled and the number of Kona slots has fallen to 40. Tighter odds over its debut year. Results from last year’s race fell inline with those of other European events and it looks like 2016 follows the same pattern.

Distribution of Finisher Splits at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016 Compared to 2015

A larger field of competitors tends to give more consistent result sets without much influence from outliers. So the shapes of the 2016 graphs are smoother and better defined. The trends at this year’s race were towards a slower bike and a faster run, resulting in very similar overall splits. Both shifts are small enough to keep Ironman Maastricht comparable with the majority of European races.

DNS and DNF Rates at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg
Listed Athletes Swim Finish Swim DNS/DNF Bike Finish Bike DNF Run Finish Run DNF Overall DNS/DNF
2015 896 811 9.5% 784 3.3% 710 9.4% 20.6%
2016 1828 1664 9% 1607 3.4% 1528 4.9% 16.4%

Again the larger field means the impact of an individual DNF or DNS is smaller on the percentages. This year’s run was not only faster, but also had fewer DNFs. The net result is a reduction in combined DNF and DNS numbers for this year’s race.

Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016
Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2015

There’s a lot of variation among the age groups when comparing their individual medians. I think some of the female age groups trend slower overall this year, but the male age groups are largely inline with the 2015 results. We can also see that the bike is slightly slower and the run slightly faster for most age groups.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg
Count Percentage
Netherlands 362 19.8
Belgium 252 13.8
United Kingdom 246 13.5
Germany 230 12.6
France 135 7.4
Spain 125 6.8
Italy 53 2.9
Unknown 50 2.7
Israel 32 1.8
United States 30 1.6

There’s the usual broad spread of nationalities for a European race with the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK topping the list.

Changes in Male Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg
Changes in Female Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg

Front of pack times have remained consistent between the two years, but as we move back through the field we see improvements. This is largely the result of increasing field size. With many more athletes in each age group 100th place moves from being back-of-pack to middle-of-pack and we see faster times for these lower placings.

Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016 Predicted Kona Qualification Times
  Slots Winner Average Kona Qualifier Final Qualifier
M18-24 1 10:02:32 10:02:32 10:02:32
M25-29 3 9:35:52 9:37:52 9:39:25
M30-34 4 9:15:58 9:22:17 9:27:36
M35-39 4 9:29:31 9:34:36 9:43:44
M40-44 4 9:35:38 9:36:15 9:37:01
M45-49 4 9:29:06 9:45:25 9:54:51
M50-54 3 9:49:14 9:52:45 9:56:55
M55-59 2 9:56:04 10:07:07 10:18:11
M60-64 1 11:07:28 11:07:28 11:07:28
M65-69 1 11:52:53 11:52:53 11:52:53
M70-74 1 13:26:45 13:26:45 13:26:45
F18-24 1 10:30:43 10:30:43 10:30:43
F25-29 1 10:31:46 10:31:46 10:31:46
F30-34 2 10:10:20 10:26:55 10:43:30
F35-39 1 10:45:04 10:45:04 10:45:04
F40-44 2 10:19:41 10:28:04 10:36:27
F45-49 1 10:27:50 10:27:50 10:27:50
F50-54 1 11:10:43 11:10:43 11:10:43
F55-59 1 11:26:29 11:26:29 11:26:29
F60-64 1 12:39:53 12:39:53 12:39:53
F65-69 1 14:19:06 14:19:06 14:19:06

Based on the athlete tracker I’ve calculated the Kona slot allocation (actual numbers will depend on the official start numbers) and from that the automatic qualification times. You can compare these figures with those from other races and previous years on my Kona Qualification page.

Top Twenty Male Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016
Top Twenty Female Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016

In the case of these top twenty performances our previous average is just the 2015 results. It’s clear here that in the majority of cases the top age groupers were faster at this years race. The biggest differences are further back, beyond tenth place, again the result of the growing field size. Winning positions are generally faster, but by a lesser degree.

Ironman Maastricht-Limburg is looking to be a typical fast European course. Not quite another Austria or Frankfurt, but still towards the faster end of the calendar. Now there are more competitors and the number of Kona slots is set at 40 that also makes it a typical qualifier. Fast performances are needed in its competitive field.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results and splits from Ironman Maastricht-Limburg 2016 on my Google Drive.

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