Ironman Tallinn 2020: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
Ironman racing has returned. After months of postponements and cancellations the second full distance Ironman brand race took place over the weekend in Estonia. Ironman Tallinn 2020 was – not surprisingly – a small race. There are enough restrictions and difficulties with travel in place and Tallinn wasn’t the largest event to begin with. Results trend faster as a consequence, likely seeing the more committed athletes racing.
You can explore the results of Ironman Tallinn in more detail in the results section.
Both bike and run times trend much faster this year. There are likely two causes for this – there do appear to be faster times in general on the course, but also the reduced numbers have potentially shrunk the mid and back-of-pack. Results are skewed towards faster athletes. Swim times aren’t much different despite many athletes having swum a lot less this season.
Age group median splits follow the trend shown in the distribution – faster times at this years event for both bike and run.
The small field was drawn from across Europe. The large Finnish turnout likely reflecting transfer options from other cancelled races.
With smaller races we tend to see a lot of variance between age groups. The largest divisions showing the most consistency while those with only a few competitors reflect those few individuals. So although the race was faster, it’s not true of every age group and position within that age group. The front of the race tended to be somewhat faster, but not hugely. What’s missing is the usual number of athletes at mid and back-of-pack.
Based on the start numbers I’ve calculated the expected slot allocation and from that the automatic qualification times before roll down. There are lots of ways to explore qualification times across races in the Result & Statistics section. The age group pages are a good way to explore qualification times across races for specific age groups.
Looking at the top 20 in each age group we can see that male age group times were typically faster than average. That’s not true of every age group, but for the largest divisions between 30 and 50 that’s the case. Women’s age groups trend closer to their previous averages in comparison.
