Ironman Sweden 2019: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification

Latest statistics for Ironman Sweden

It’s another big weekend of Ironman racing with three events on the calendar and first for review is Ironman Sweden. Now a well established and fast European Ironman course Sweden draws a big field of over 2,000 competitors. It offers the standard 40 age group Kona slots for the 2019 Ironman World Championship. This year’s race looks to have been a fairly typical year for the Kalmar course.

Distribution of Finisher Splits at Ironman Sweden 2019 Compared with 2012-2018

Overall this year’s race trends similarly to the amalgamated results form the previous 7 years. It is very slightly faster, but only by a fraction. Looking at the individual splits this comes from a faster swim and bike distribution that counter a slower run distribution.

DNF Rates at Ironman Sweden
Year
Starters
Finishers
Swim DNF
Bike DNF
Run DNF
Overall DNF
DQs
2012
1388
1348
0.4%
1.4%
1.2%
2.9%
2013
1715
1605
0.9%
2.5%
3.4%
6.4%
2
2014
2084
1992
0.8%
1.6%
2.1%
4.4%
11
2015
2123
1968
2.5%
1.7%
3.2%
7.3%
29
2016
2151
2064
1%
0.8%
2.2%
4%
10
2017
2139
2033
0.4%
1.7%
3%
5%
3
2018
2131
2007
0.7%
2.1%
3.2%
5.8%
4
2019
2278
2161
0.8%
1.6%
2.8%
5.1%
4

DNF rates for this years race are also normal for this course. There’s no major deviation from previous years of racing. The Kalmar course appears to be quite consistent in this regard.

Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Sweden 2019
Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Sweden 2012-2018

Age group medians tend to follow the same pattern as the distributions and this is broadly the case here. There is some variance across age groups, particularly in smaller divisions. Overall though we see faster swim and bike with a slower run.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Sweden
Country
Count
Percentage
Sweden
1873
70.8
United Kingdom
127
4.8
Germany
88
3.3
Thailand
80
3
Finland
66
2.5
Poland
54
2
Norway
47
1.8
United States
31
1.2
Netherlands
24
0.9
Denmark
23
0.9
Ironman Sweden 2019 Predicted Kona Qualifiers by Country
Country
Percentage of Slots
Percentage of Field
Sweden
65.0
70.8
Austria
7.5
0.4
Germany
7.5
3.3
Finland
5.0
2.5
Czech Republic
5.0
0.5
Canada
2.5
0.2
Netherlands
2.5
0.9
Belgium
2.5
0.8
Spain
2.5
0.7

Sweden takes the most Kona slots as the largest group of competitors. The remaining slots are distributed among a few other nationalities.

Changes in Male Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Sweden
Changes in Female Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Sweden

Tracking specific placings and times across age groups generally shows an upturn over the last couple of years. In many cases this pushes towards Swedens fastest times, particularly at the front. As with other charts variance is a factor though and not all age groups show the same picture for this race.

Ironman Sweden 2019 Predicted Kona Qualification Times
Age Group
Slots
Winner
Average Kona Qualifier
Final Qualifier
M18-24
1
09:16:57
09:16:57
09:16:57
M25-29
2
08:38:34
08:40:43
08:42:52
M30-34
3
08:54:44
09:00:51
09:04:47
M35-39
4
08:46:42
08:54:36
09:00:41
M40-44
5
08:36:59
08:45:01
08:51:13
M45-49
5
09:03:58
09:14:12
09:20:32
M50-54
4
09:06:13
09:30:48
09:45:43
M55-59
2
10:11:32
10:19:38
10:27:44
M60-64
1
10:52:18
10:52:18
10:52:18
M65-69
1
12:09:08
12:09:08
12:09:08
M70-74
1
12:50:17
12:50:17
12:50:17
M75-79
1
15:44:58
15:44:58
15:44:58
F18-24
1
10:06:38
10:06:38
10:06:38
F25-29
1
09:49:11
09:49:11
09:49:11
F30-34
1
09:44:45
09:44:45
09:44:45
F35-39
1
09:47:19
09:47:19
09:47:19
F40-44
2
10:11:13
10:12:44
10:14:16
F45-49
1
10:22:09
10:22:09
10:22:09
F50-54
1
10:17:59
10:17:59
10:17:59
F55-59
1
11:03:38
11:03:38
11:03:38
F60-64
1
11:32:59
11:32:59
11:32:59

Based on the start numbers I’ve calculated the Kona slot allocation and from that the automatic qualifying times. Final numbers may vary and roll down is not factored in. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.

Top Twenty Male Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Sweden 2019
Top Twenty Female Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Sweden 2019

For the top twenty in each age groups times were average or better. A lot of age groups weren’t too far from the average, but some proved to be much faster. Most notably the M40-44 age division where top twenty times were almost all faster than previously seen on the course. This was definitely a challenging year to qualify in that group.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Sweden 2019 on my Google Drive.

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