Ironman Australia 2019: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
The third Ironman of 2019 is Ironman Australis. One of the older races on the calendar, it’s a mid-sized event with the standard 40 Kona slots on offer. Times from Port Macquarie have been quite consistent over the years and this year isn’t an exception. Results trend very slightly slower, but not by a significant margin.
Comparing the distribution of finisher splits from this year’s race with the combined results from the previous decade shows a fractionally slower race. The swim distribution is more tightly packed around the 1:05 mark, but this is likely highlighting the broadening affect of amalgamating historical data. Both bike and run times trend slower, these are the areas that combine to give a slower overall distribution to this year’s race. In each case the difference is in the order of 5-10 minutes at the median.
DNF figures for 2019 fall within reasonable bounds for Port Macquarie. The run DNF figure is slightly higher than recent years and that pushes the overall figure over 6%, but otherwise numbers are comparable. Note that red rows indicate a row where DNS figures will also be included in the totals.
Comparing age group median splits it’s the bike times where there is the most distinct difference. This year’s medians are consistently slower. Run times also follow this trend, but to a lesser degree.
As we’d expect the majority of the field is Australian with Japan and New Zealand being second and third largest. Australia holds onto all, but one of the slots based on automatic qualifying times.
For the largest age groups in Ironman times at Ironman Australia have been consistent and fluctuations small. This year doesn’t deviate from that pattern either and fits inline with a decade of racing. We can see some variation between age groups in this chart, at the age group and placing level some times were faster this year and some slower.
Based on the slot allocation and start list I’ve estimated the Kona slot allocation for this race. Final numbers may vary and roll down is not factored into this calculation. From that allocation I’ve then calculate the automatic qualifying times at this event. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.
Considering the top twenty within each age group we see a lot of variation in these charts. For the most part times lie around the median for the course, but there are age groups that stand out. Both male and female 45-49 year olds trend towards some of the fastest times while M35-39 outside of the Koan qualifier were much slower than average. Such a variable picture and with times only slightly slower than usual in the distributions it would suggest this was a typical year of racing on the Port Macquarie course.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Australia 2019 on my Google Drive.
