Athletics: If the Ironman World Championship doesn’t happen in Kona, did it even happen?

NEW YORK – The highest peak of a triathlete’s career can be found along a stretch of Ali’i Drive in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

It is a small road, one dotted with local cafes, a smattering of hotels and the Kona Farmers Market.

Since 1981, the town of about 20,000 has played host to the pinnacle of the sport – the Ironman World Championships.

Annually, 2,500 athletes qualify to participate in the event, having outraced those in their age groups in a 3.8km swim, a 180km bike ride and a 42.2km marathon.

“Everyone who has heard of triathlon as a sport has heard of Kona,” said Todd Wakefield, a world championship qualifier.

But last Sunday, Ironman officially announced it would be making a long-term change to the annual world championships.

The 2023 event will take place over two days in two cities. Men will be racing in Nice, France, on Sept 10, while the women will compete in Kona on Oct 14. The two cities will host until 2026, with men and women switching locations every year.

No longer would Kona be singularly synonymous with the top Ironman triathletes in the world.

“Heartbreaking,” said Drew Jordan, another world championship qualifier. In 2018, Wakefield and Jordan began sharing their triathlon journey and a look at the most prestigious course on an Instagram account called Couch to Kona.

The “two dudes trying to stay fit”, as they call themselves, were inundated with messages after the official call came down.

Everything was about Kona, they said, one echoing the other between sighs.

“We’ve literally been thinking about trying to qualify for this race for four years now,” Jordan said.

It was a major change that many have seen coming for some time, but one that was realised in 2022, in part, because of an enormous glut of qualifiers who had yet to race because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Ironman CEO Andrew Messick.

In an effort to get qualified athletes racing again, the 2021 world championships – the first held after the 2020 race’s cancellation – were moved to St George, Utah, a location with looser Covid-19 restrictions.

Qualifiers from 2019 were given an option of either racing in May in Utah (the event counted as the 2021 championships) or deferring their qualification to the usual time and location of the championships, the second weekend of October in Kona (an event that would count as the 2022 championships).

Most athletes picked the latter, choosing the mystique of Kona over the first championships to return since the onset of the pandemic.

“Everyone’s dream is Kona,” said Skye Ombac, a triathlete from Hawaii.

A fan of the sport, Ombac streamed the St George world championships in May.

“They still had the Hawaiian drums and the volunteers had the fake leis,” she said.

“And there were Hawaiian dancers and they were trying so hard to still make it Kona, but it’s not in Kona.

“It was a world championship. But everyone said it was the world championship in quotation marks; it’s not Kona.”

After a series of conversations with Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth, Messick and his team decided to host two days of racing in Kona in 2022, with men and women competing on different days. There were two live broadcasts.

This was the future, Messick thought.

Bigger fields, more qualifying slots for age-group athletes and a clear way to highlight the women’s race, which has historically been swallowed up by simultaneous coverage of the men’s race.

“We need to continue to adapt to what has been an extraordinary growth in demand for the world championship,” Messick said.

“While Kona is a huge part of the history of Ironman, we have outgrown the ability to do a world championship in just one day there.”

It is difficult to overstate the significance of place to these races.

For runners and triathletes, qualifying for a race is qualifying to “run Boston” or to “race Kona”.

Runners do not want to qualify for the Boston Marathon to run the marathon in another city.

And many are not interested in qualifying for the world championships to race outside of Hawaii.

Some athletes, including Jordan and Wakefield, are beginning to strategise.

They still plan to focus on qualifying for the world championships, but only when it is their turn to race in Kona.

Ombac, a teacher who was cheered on by students on race day, said competing in Kona was one of the best days of her life, but travelling to Nice for a championship is too expensive. Some athletes may have on-years and off-years.

If there is one point everyone can agree on, it is the improved coverage of the women’s race that came with a separate event date.

Athletes interviewed – even those who were vehemently opposed to the change – nodded towards that progress.

“It’s good for the sport,” said Sarah Crowley, a two-time world championship bronze medallist who finished seventh in the 2022 race.

“After seeing the success of the two-day format, I can see the importance of the women-only race,” added the Australian athlete.

“Being a female competitor at the highest level, it showcased the women individually and gave us our own day.”

As she discussed the change in location, she said she would go anywhere to race in the world championships. A world title is a world title, she said.

But then she paused. It may be a different conversation if she were headed to Nice in 2023 after all.

“It’s easy to see it through my eyes because I get to go to Kona this year,” she said. NYTIMES