Ironman Wisconsin 2019: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
Alongside the 70.3 World Champs there was one full distance Ironman over the weekend: Ironman Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a long standing US race that draws a large field of over 2,000 athletes with the standard allocation of 40 Kona slots on offer. It’s the first US qualifier for the 2020 Ironman world Championships. The course itself is relatively slow, but has been consistent over the years.
This year’s race was clearly slower the swim than the amalgamated results of the previous decade. The bike splits are more broadly spread, the median was slower this year, but the fifth percentile faster than the historic data. Run times trended slightly faster. On balance the overall distribution follows the bike splits and is slightly slower at the median, but faster for the top 5%. The degree of variation is relatively small though.
The DNF rate was a little higher this year and unusually this appears to be a result of a higher level of DNF in the swim. Swim times were slower and it appears conditions were such more people failed to complete the swim.
Age group medians follow the same trends as shown in the distributions. A clearly slower set of swim medians, but more variable for bike and run. Some age groups have similar medians to previous results, others come in slower.
US athletes predominate at this race – over 90% of the field come from the US. Kona slots are spread a little wider with a good portion going to Canadian athletes.
While there has been some variation in times for specific age group places over the years, if we focus on the core age group (30-50) the pattens is more stable. Conditions have varied and some years are faster or slower as a consequence, but shifts have tended to be relatively small in the top 50.
Based on start numbers I’ve calculated the Kona slot allocation and from that automatic qualification times. Roll down is not factored in and given there were no finishers in the F70-74 division at least one slot will have rolled. You can compare this with other Ironman races on my Kona qualification page.
The top twenty times for each age group hold a fairly tight pattern around their average with no major outliers. this year’s race varies around the average, but overall trend a little in advance of it. This is particularly notable in the male age groups over 35 where times clearly come in faster than the average. There’s more variability in the women’s age groups.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Wisconsin 2019 on my Google Drive.
