The last race of the weekend is a small one – Ironman Haugesund Norway 2019. Haugesund drew a field of just under 350 athletes competing for 30 age group Kona slots; that works out at about 1 slot per 10 athletes.
Every stage of the race trended faster this year. As we only have two years of race results we can only build a limited picture of the course though. After a slower 2018 this year’s times appear more in line with some of the faster European races like Sweden or Copenhagen.
The DNF rate is slightly higher at this year’s race, partly from some DNF on the swim. However these numbers aren’t exceptionally high by Ironman standards.
As with the distributions this year’s age group medians trend faster than 2018.
A broad range of nationalities race in Norway with the slots being equally widely spread.
How performances changed between the two years of racing depends very much on position within age groups. This is largely a reflection on the small size od the field which means 50th place may be towards the back of an age group. So we see times improve at the front of the race, but for smaller age groups they slow further back as the lower placings represent further back in the pack.
Based on the start list I’ve calculated the Kona slot allocation and automatic qualification times. The final numbers may have varied and roll down would influence final qualifying times. You can compare this with other race on my Kona qualification page.
When we look at the top twenty of each age group we see a faster race, but also the impact of a small field. Times fall off rapidly in a thinner field so while the very front is normally much faster that can quickly fall away. |n smaller age groups times are more variable and we see a slower race for many of these too.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Haugesund 2019 on my Google Drive.
