Ironman Cozumel 2018: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
After a week’s wait for results to appear within Ironman.com, I’m finally analysing the age group data from Ironman Cozumel 2018. Cozumel is a mid-sized race that offers the standard 40 Kona slots for age group athletes. Race times have varied over the years, but Cozumel’s results tend to be mid-range for the Ironman series.
This year’s race appears to have trended very slightly slower then the previous 9 years of results. It’s a small shift in the medians at every stage and certainly nothing that should be considered significant. With the exception of the swim, where there have been some distinctly fast years in the water, the top 5% of the field trends much the same as in the past. Overall the distributions are quite similar to the grouped historical data.
DNF numbers also look quite reasonable when compared with past races. To help clarify I’ve now marked years which have good DNF data, cleanly separated from DNS data, in blue and those years where DNS and DNF numbers mix together in red. Comparing blue with blue we can see similar numbers most years.
Age group medians follow a similar pattern to the distributions. However, when the difference in current medians and the past is so close there’s a lot of variation over the age groups. In some instances medians were slightly faster this year and in others slower.
Cozumel draws quite a wide field with about a third of athletes from outside North America. Slots are well distributed among these nationalities.
Tracking the times for specific age group positions over the last decade shows how variable the race has been. Front runner times in the largest age groups are more consistent, but further back and in smaller age groups there’s been a wide range of results. This year looks to stand around the middle of these results.
Based on the start list I’ve calculated the slot allocation using what I believe to be the current method. From that I’m able to calculate the automatic qualification times for each age group. Precise numbers may vary a little and I cannot factor in roll down. you can compare this with other Ironman races on my Kona qualification page.
Finally the age group top twenty times mostly trend close to or slightly ahead of the course averages. It varies a little, there are always age groups that prove an exception. Overall this year looks to have been typical for Cozumel.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Cozumel 2018 on my Google Drive.
