Qualifying for Kona at IMWI

My take: Short answer, if you win your age group and send in an app you are in.

There is one slot per age group initially.  [edit - looking at past slot allocation, not so sure this is true, since there seem to be slots in every age group (except 80+ perhaps), and more than 1 slot is awarded in many groups, so not sure how many slots there are initially].   There are ways more slots can open up:

(1) If a male age group does not have an applicant, the slot for that age group will move to the next largest male age group, so that age group might get more than one slot, in which case if you are second and you apply you are in.

(2) If no one registers in an age group, slots are moved to the next largest group

(3) If applicant for a slot DNFs, and there are no other applicants, that slot moves to another group

Chris

There are also lottery spots awarded - 250 or so of the racers in Kona did not qualify.  Also, some may have relaxed on their training a little leading up to that race, having already given all they had to qualify. 

Plus, I've heard that Kona is kind of a hard race, too. 

Qualifying for Kona in your age group is a "tall task".  It can be done, but, most pay a big price to put in the sort of work needed to get there.

Don't forget that rolldowns also include those people who qualify outside their age group...their slot gets rolled down too.

For example, for the 30-34 age group slot, if one of the top 8 in the age group wins the race, that race winner qualifies by winning the race and not by winning the age group, consequently, their age group slot gets rolled down.