Ironman Backpedals on Equality

By: Sara Gross

If I’m honest, I knew this was coming. From the moment Ironman CEO Scott DeRue said “What is equal anyway?” on the record to Kelly and I in Nice last fall, I saw the writing on the wall. 

We were going back. 

After three years of having our own race, of not being swept up in packs of men on the bike course, of watching a woman cross the line first (and second and third!). Of having a place to celebrate women’s triathlon at a world championship level. Of not feeling less than because we only make up 25% of the race. After all the cheers and tears and celebration, Ironman decided to go back to how things were before. 

According to Wednesday’s press release, offering equal access to the Ironman World Championship didn’t work fast enough to increase women’s participation in the sport, so we’re going back to the old way. (Which, just to be clear, didn’t work either. For multiple decades.)

To the hundreds of women who reached out to me or Kelly or Feisty over the last two days, I see you. I feel you. I’m tired, too. And I’m so sorry that we have to rehash all the arguments about equality v. proportionality again. I’m sorry that we have to listen to people telling us that we aren’t good enough to race at a World Championship. All the effort you put in to train for the sport you love despite all the cultural pressure to do otherwise is not wasted. I see you. 

The Ironman press release was framed as a letter from the CEO, himself, to the triathlon `ohana (which roughly translates as “family” in Hawaiian) and announced several changes to the Ironman World Championships — including a return to a single day of racing in Kona, a commitment to better media coverage and a fair race for the pro women, and an overall increase in slots at Kona to almost 3,000. The letter also included a list of FAQs at the bottom, where more details were unveiled. Details like how exactly those slots will be awarded.

How did we get back here? I have some thoughts. And more questions. 

The biggest flaw in the process that led to these decisions was Ironman’s over-reliance on two surveys: an email poll of existing customers to ask their preferences for a world championship location, and a longer survey of “10,000 members of our community” that went out to women in triathlon and in some adjacent sports within the Ironman ecosystem, like running.

Why use a survey of current customers to make decisions about what might attract future potential customers? If you want to know what would get women to do Ironman, shouldn’t you ask those women who haven’t signed up for one yet?

On the podcast we recorded after the news dropped, Kelly pointed out that surveys like these are typically used in other industries to gauge changing consumer attitudes or trends over time, in order to prepare for what direction your customers may be going. To that end, if they had used this survey more in keeping with how consumer behavior surveys should be used, then they should be paying attention to the fact that after decades of indoctrination in the Kona mystique, 42% of women STILL preferred to have their own race in non-Kona locations. It took just two years for that sentiment to shift, and is honestly startling. That data point could be read as a swing towards “women love having their own race,” but Ironman instead interpreted this same data the opposite way.

Which is the other issue with the survey: the interpretation of the data, which we know if done poorly can lead down whatever path the interpreter wants. The number one pick in their own survey was actually a two-day Kona with separate races for men and women, so what does that say?

As Tamara Jewett rightly pointed out in a social media post “You can’t use surveys to decide your values.” 

Ahead of the press release, Ironman spent time speaking to athletes, tri clubs, local communities, and partners — and they reference a coming investment in programs to get women into the sport. There’s a lot of talk about how the “entry points” to triathlon are more important to increasing participation than the world championships. But did they talk to anyone who has successfully increased women’s participation in other sports? (Because I can almost guarantee those who have seen success would not recommend proportionality, and would tell you that the top-level is just as important as the entry-level.) 

Did they ask the women who first advocated for a fair race in Kona in the late 1980s? Did they ask those of us who advocated for the equal pro slots we have today? Did they ask the people involved in the early days of the ITU (now World Triathlon) how they increased participation and built depth? Did they ask anyone from running, cycling, basketball, soccer, volleyball or hockey how those sports have created such rapid growth in both participation and performance? 

One of the reasons triathlon got into the Olympic Games on such a quick trajectory was because of its commitment to equality (as in, actual equal numbers, not proportional numbers) as mandated by the IOC. They could have even learned from their own sport.

Instead, I think by focusing on and polling the same group of people who have been in long-course triathlon for decades, they got the same answers they’ve always gotten.

Ironman tells us that providing equal access to the World Championship in a two-day format “became an exit point at an accelerated rate” for women. But the interpretation of that data seems flawed after just two cycles. Did Ironman give them a reason to stay? Or, did Ironman even look at its own 70.3 World Championship — which has been through far more cycles since its move to two days and its increased spots for women — to see how that plays out or why growth has been so much more successful at that distance?

If the goal was to find out what “most” of the current cohort of Ironman athletes wants and give it to them, then yes, they accomplished their goal. But if the goal was truly to make Ironman more appealing, accessible, and welcoming for women, then taking away the equal access we briefly had to the World Championship is absolutely not the way to do it.

If what we’re talking about is really increasing women’s participation and longevity in triathlon, then we must conclude that, as a strategy, proportional representation did not work after three decades of trying it — not just after three years. But if you give women equal access for three decades, it absolutely will work. Because it has before. In every sport. Every single time.

Increased opportunity creates growth — consistently and always. It takes time and effort, but anyone who works in women’s sports has seen how it works with their own eyes. The data is there, from Title IX to IOC mandates for gender parity. We’ve been here before. 

I sincerely hope that Ironman will reconsider their stance on how age-group athletes qualify for the World Championship and give women the slots they deserve proportional only to the number of women in the world at large: 50% of the population deserves 50% of the spots.

And to the women who messaged me brokenhearted: While Ironman is busy scratching their heads trying to figure out why women don’t think long-distance triathlon is the sport for them, come join me at Hyrox?