Ironman Florida 2016: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
Ironman Florida took place two days ago – this analysis is a little later than usual. Florida is a long standing race that comes with the now standard 40 Kona slots for an age group only field. It’s a relatively large event, although numbers were down a little at this year’s race. Generally I’d consider Florida a fast course, but the latest results lean towards the slower end for the event.
A brief note: the swim was cancelled in 2014 so I’ve excluded 2014 results from the medians and distributions below to keep a fair comparison.
What’s clear is that compared with the amalgamated data from 2003-2015 this year’s race was slower at every stage of the event. Although I can’t say why, each of the 4 distributions has a lot more weight to the right with a far greater proportion of athletes finishing in what can be termed the back of pack. Whether the shift in results is indicative of a shift in the field is hard to say for certain, but the front of the race does seem a little thinner.
Listed Athletes | Swim Finish | Swim DNS/DNF | Bike Finish | Bike DNF | Run Finish | Run DNF | Overall DNS/DNF | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | 2283 | 1986 | 13% | 1960 | 1.3% | 1912 | 2.4% | 16.3% |
2004 | 2424 | 2088 | 13.9% | 2097 | 2033 | 3.1% | 16.1% | |
2005 | 2388 | 2029 | 15% | 2024 | 0.2% | 1935 | 4.4% | 19% |
2006 | 2538 | 2176 | 14.3% | 2154 | 1% | 2108 | 2.1% | 16.9% |
2007 | 2609 | 2251 | 13.7% | 2260 | 2184 | 3.4% | 16.3% | |
2008 | 2606 | 2259 | 13.3% | 2250 | 0.4% | 2184 | 2.9% | 16.2% |
2009 | 2880 | 2397 | 16.8% | 2383 | 0.6% | 2312 | 3% | 19.7% |
2010 | 2854 | 2379 | 16.6% | 2366 | 0.5% | 2300 | 2.8% | 19.4% |
2011 | 2921 | 2439 | 16.5% | 2401 | 1.6% | 2354 | 2% | 19.4% |
2012 | 3061 | 2565 | 16.2% | 2520 | 1.8% | 2426 | 3.7% | 20.7% |
2013 | 2891 | 2816 | 2.6% | 2772 | 1.6% | 2700 | 2.6% | 6.6% |
2014 | 2680 | 2496 | 2371 | 5% | 11.7% | |||
2015 | 2980 | 2408 | 19.2% | 2331 | 3.2% | 2193 | 5.9% | 26.4% |
2016 | 2245 | 2167 | 3.5% | 2121 | 2.1% | 2004 | 5.5% | 10.7% |
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Athlete numbers were down for this year’s race. Perhaps the growing choice of qualifying races has drawn some people away from Florida. Assuming that the athlete list represents those at the venue so DNS numbers will make up a small proportion of the drop out then the DNF rate at Florida may be on the higher side.
Age group medians are also clearly slower at this year’s race. Unsurprising when there’s such a clear pattern in the distributions.
Country | Percentage of Slots | Percentage of Field |
---|---|---|
United States | 70.0 | 77.1 |
Italy | 5.0 | 0.6 |
Chile | 5.0 | 0.5 |
New Zealand | 2.5 | 0.1 |
Belgium | 2.5 | 0.1 |
Canada | 2.5 | 3.6 |
Spain | 2.5 | 0.5 |
Brazil | 2.5 | 0.9 |
Finland | 2.5 | 0.3 |
Germany | 2.5 | 0.7 |
The US appear to take the majority of slots, in line with the numbers at the race. There’s a broad selection of other nationalities also finishing within the slot allocation.
Count | Percentage | |
---|---|---|
United States | 1732 | 77.1 |
Canada | 81 | 3.6 |
Ecuador | 51 | 2.3 |
United Kingdom | 40 | 1.8 |
Mexico | 39 | 1.7 |
Argentinia | 30 | 1.3 |
Brazil | 21 | 0.9 |
Germany | 15 | 0.7 |
Italy | 14 | 0.6 |
France | 13 | 0.6 |
Florida is a relatively diverse North American race with a good proportion of nationalities represented.
First of all you can see how the 2014 times, without a swim, stand out. Putting that year aside, 2016 is towards the slower end of Florida results in many age groups, although not the slowest necessarily. Bearing in mind these charts look at times in the top 100, this may not capture the impact of a slower back of pack.
Slots | Winner | Average Kona Qualifier | Final Qualifier | |
---|---|---|---|---|
M18-24 | 1 | 10:05:59 | 10:05:59 | 10:05:59 |
M25-29 | 1 | 9:32:08 | 9:32:08 | 9:32:08 |
M30-34 | 2 | 8:48:15 | 9:03:44 | 9:19:13 |
M35-39 | 3 | 8:58:22 | 9:04:17 | 9:11:52 |
M40-44 | 4 | 8:48:57 | 9:02:33 | 9:10:08 |
M45-49 | 3 | 9:46:01 | 9:53:17 | 9:59:17 |
M50-54 | 3 | 9:48:57 | 9:58:03 | 10:08:21 |
M55-59 | 2 | 10:30:01 | 10:38:30 | 10:47:00 |
M60-64 | 2 | 10:55:12 | 11:04:20 | 11:13:28 |
M65-69 | 1 | 11:15:35 | 11:15:35 | 11:15:35 |
M70-74 | 1 | 12:20:52 | 12:20:52 | 12:20:52 |
M75-79 | 1 | 16:03:24 | 16:03:24 | 16:03:24 |
F18-24 | 1 | 13:11:34 | 13:11:34 | 13:11:34 |
F25-29 | 1 | 10:25:00 | 10:25:00 | 10:25:00 |
F30-34 | 1 | 9:58:57 | 9:58:57 | 9:58:57 |
F35-39 | 2 | 9:47:49 | 9:58:17 | 10:08:46 |
F40-44 | 2 | 10:32:51 | 10:35:47 | 10:38:43 |
F45-49 | 2 | 10:17:40 | 10:34:10 | 10:50:40 |
F50-54 | 2 | 10:26:40 | 10:49:31 | 11:12:23 |
F55-59 | 1 | 11:05:55 | 11:05:55 | 11:05:55 |
F60-64 | 1 | 12:29:54 | 12:29:54 | 12:29:54 |
F65-69 | 1 | 15:07:13 | 15:07:13 | 15:07:13 |
F70-74 | 1 | 15:52:01 | 15:52:01 | 15:52:01 |
Based on the athlete list this is my estimate of the slot allocation and the automatic qualifying times assuming no roll down. Actually numbers may have varied, I’ve not seen an official allocation list yet. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.
Finally checking the performances of the top twenty in each age group this year we generally see a slower race. That said those at the very front are frequently close to the course averages and with older athletes the performances in the top twenty also tend to fall closer to the averages too.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results and splits from Ironman Florida 2016 on my Google Drive.