Ironman World Championship 2009 drafting
October 15th, 2009 by Nikola
I watched the bike part of the race a little bit. I saw some drafting, but I was not there and did not get any reports so far, so I really do not know if this was an accident or a moment or a general atmosphere. I have never done or watched Ironman World Championships so it is not possible for me to judge it. I think one has to be there to understand the problem. This is why I try to rely on judgment from others who were there.
However Ironman World Championship has a very high authority status and, I think, many do not feel at ease to criticize it. It is easier for people to “trash” an emerging or local race (an easy target) than Ironman World Champs. It is normal human mentality to be afraid of authority. Authority makes some keep quite while some are even more stimulated to complain and rebel. I guess, like always, best method is somewhere in the middle.
However, I am not so much interested in drafting at Ironman World Championship.
What worries me is how people get to participate in the this World Championship.
Triathletes qualify through worldwide Ironman races, they place well in their age groups and win a Hawaii slot. Since, at least in my experience and judging from reports I get, some of these races are very tolerant about top age groupers drafting I can assume that a certain part of the Ironman World Championship participants got there thanks to cheating.
How many guys at Ironman World Championship are there thanks to drafting? Guys who do 8:50-9:10 in races like Ironman Austria but can not pull of a semi decent result in Kona. Is it the heat or the lack of the well known 50 people cycling packs? I respect those who work hard and have talent but for sure there is a percentage which does not play fair.
Ironman World Championship must eventually clean up all qualifying races before they even think about stating that Kona is clean of drafting. Most Ironman drafters have enough brains to know they can draft in places like Austria and not draft in places like Kona.
As always all comments are welcome…