The swim this year clearly trended slower with a broader spread of times than in 2016. After that both bike and run trended slightly faster than the year before. Differences are small though, a matter of minutes at most. The net result is a similar distribution of overall splits with the front of this year’s race (fifth percentile) looking a little faster.

There’s a large number of DNS included in the 2016 swim and overall numbers. The bike DNF for 2016 is surprisingly low while 2017 numbers seem fairly standard for a race. Run DNF numbers are not too different between the two years, with 2017 coming in a little lower.

Comparing median splits across age groups gives us another clear indication of slower swim medians, but a mixed pattern for bike and run splits. While there are differences, times from the two years are close enough that we can’t pick out trends crossing all divisions.

There’s little difference in times for specific age group places between the two years either. There are some signs of improvements in times in some age groups, possibly a product of the larger field in this year’s race (effectively pushing a specific placing to a higher percentile in the field).

Finally, comparing the top twenty in each age group over the two years. Art the front of the race 2017 was the faster of the two. For most age groups we see faster times this year. The difference is smaller at the very front of the field – winning and podium positions tending to be very close.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Weymouth 70.3 2017 on my Google Drive.

Perhaps the most notable feature of Weymouth was a novel distribution of slots. While the same mechanism for slot allocation was used, all over 55 age groups were merged into one for the purposes of allocation. If you want to see the impact of this on qualification for the older age groups you’ll find details towards the end of this post.

I’m not going to go into too much detail directly comparing Weymouth with the Bolton and Tenby courses. We’ll use the most recent finisher distributions from each to compare these races. It is worth noting that these courses have seen changes over the years and quite varied conditions, but a single year snapshot gives a reasonable picture of the events. As it stands Weymouth is the fastest of the 3, with the bike section in particular trending ahead of the others. Not surprising given neither the UK or Wales is known for a fast bike. Differences in swim and run are much smaller; it’s really this faster bike split that’s shifted the overall results.

I think it’s fair to say that Weymouth looks to be the fastest of the three courses. It’s not fast in comparison to central European events, but the smaller field may also contribute to that in comparison to those larger races. The difference doesn’t appear to be huge though and in less favourable conditions could be smaller still.

As an additional comparison the chart above contains the distributions for the previous years of Challenge Weymouth. Note the y-axis has a slightly different scale to accommodate the short swim in 2014 (a single lap due to conditions). Ignoring the swim we can see that both bike and run were much slower at this year’s race. Probably some course changes involved here (and bearing in mind the shortened swim in 2014 would tend to speed up subsequent stages), but also the additional athletes broadening the range of performances at the race.

Comparing the DNF/DNS rates over the last 3 years we can see there’s a small rise in both bike and run DNF rates. The big difference in swim and overall DNF/DNS comes down to a matter of reporting. For 2016 these figures contain all the DNS athletes as well as the DNF athletes, prior to that the numbers are purely DNFs. It’s reasonable to expect that the overall DNF rate this year was slightly higher than before, but not significantly.

Sure enough, when we compare the medians across the 3 years of racing in Weymouth, this year’s race comes out the slowest. this appear to be true for most, if not all age groups. There’s not much difference between this year’s and last year’s swim, after that though 2016 is distinctly slower.

As we’d expect from a small race with relatively few Kona slots the majority of athletes were from the UK with a small number coming from Europe or beyond.

In the biggest age groups the trend in finish times is fairly clear – this year was slower. In smaller age groups, all of the female age groups for example, there’s less of a pattern and in some instances we see a faster race.

Unusually, I’ve been able to use the official slot calculation rather than having to do my own this time (this uses exact start numbers where I estimate from registered numbers). Using that slot allocation I’ve calculated the automatic Kona qualifying times from the results. Of course this doesn’t factor in the potential to roll down so final qualifying times may differ. You can compare with other races on my Kona qualification page.

Plotting the top twenty age group finishing times for the 3 years of races at Weymouth again puts this year’s event towards the back. That said, when it comes to Kona qualifying times aren’t always that far behind last year or the course average (considering that average includes a short swim year). This would suggest one of the bigger factors in a slower race is a larger middle to back of pack.

Finally, let’s look at how the slots are allocated at the different UK races.

It should be noted that Wales will not have fifty slots this year so you won’t see as many slots in the biggest age groups. Ironman UK is probably the better guide in that respect. Merging the 55+ age groups at Weymouth helps keep the number of slots in the biggest age groups up even though the total allocation is only 30. For women it doesn’t make much difference. In most European races women make up about 10% of the field and so each age group tends to get allocated the minimum single slot.

What affect does merging the older age groups have on qualification for those over 55?

It’s not surprising, but the top ten men over 55 all came from the 55-59 age group. With this merger 60+ male athletes are effectively locked out of qualifying at Weymouth. Few women over the age of 55 completed the race, but second place did go to F60-64. That’s still not enough to qualify and in a larger field we’d likely see more 55-59 athletes coming up ahead.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results and splits from Ironman Weymouth 2016 on my Google Drive.

Given this unusual Kona slot allocation, I thought I’d take a quick look at results from the previous Challenge races and what they suggest for qualifiers. If you’re just interested in qualification, you’ll find the table of slots and times further down this page.

The first year of Challenge Weymouth was particularly fast, although this looks to be due to a short or current assisted swim. There isn’t as much difference between the two years out of the water; 2014 is faster on the run and combined with the swim times that made it faster overall. The 2015 bike course appears to have been quicker though, particularly at the front of pack.

DNF rates are consistent between the two years. The entry rates for Challenge were fairly low, while numbers for Ironman appear to be in the 800s. That’s still low for an Ironman, but it’s new and competing with the more established Ironman Wales that also comes with more Kona slots.

We can see the big difference in swim medians between the two years. As with the distributions, the 2014 run is the faster of the two while 2015 is ahead on the bike. The differences in bike splits are more varied over the age groups while swim and run show more consistent trends.

The table above uses the athlete counts from Challenge Weymouth and applies the Ironman Weymouth Kona slot allocation to these numbers (30 Kona slots, with 55+ age groups combined). From there it then averages the likely qualifying times based on placings in the 2014 and 2015 Challenge races.

It’s a very rough guide to Kona qualification. Given the increase number of athletes at the race we may see different age group distributions and will certainly see a different range of qualifying times. It’s safe to say that the merging of all 55+ age groups will likely make this a poor qualification choice for anyone in a 60+ age group.

Finally the top twenty in each age group. As expected 2014 is the faster year, although it’s not as clear cut for the female age groups. Additional athletes signing up for the Ironman event will likely impact on these top 20 times. We’ll see by how much in my analysis on Monday.