Kona IQ (Index of Qualifiers)
Links below to TriTalk and the idea of Kona IQ (Index of Qualifiers). Look over all the links and post what you think--I have no idea, just thought it might make an interesting discussion. Heaven knows I'm never getting to Kona, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you out there, if you haven't seen it already. It's from 2007, but I guess the numbers stacked up at the time.
An attempt to objectively quantify the relative difficulty of qualifying for the Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii at each of the qualifying world-wide full Ironman events. An exclusive report, today on Tri Talk.
The Kona I.Q. is based on a simple formula that establishes relative baseline race difficulty, and matches that to the performance of the last (slowest) qualifying time for that age group. A percentage is then assigned to each age group for each race. That percentage represents how much slower the last qualifier was relative to the top finishers for that event. Therefore, a race where the last qualifier for a particular age group was 20% slower than the top finishers would theoretically be easier to qualify for than a race where the last qualifier was 10% slower than the top finishers for that race.
Comments
Interesting stuff, Linda. Thanks for posting.
For even greater grandularity, this oustanding analysis by Neil Hammond breaks out the times, rolldowns, and other factors. I didn't compare the two, but is the tritalk analysis a summary of the rankings that emerge in Hammond's findings?
Of course, no spreadsheet in the world is going to help when six to eight faster dude / dudettes your age show up on race morning ... sometimes you just gotta play the cards you're dealt!