A Descriptive Analysis of the Fastest Race Courses for Triathletes

Abstract

Background: For Ironman® triathlon, it has been reported that most of the fnishers and the fastest women and men in Ironman® Hawaii originated from the United States of America (USA). We have, however, no knowledge of
where the fastest race courses in the Ironman® 70.3 triathlon took place. We aim to analyse where the Ironman® 70.3 races were held and where the fastest split and overall race times were achieved.

Methods: The athletes’ sex, age group, country of origin, and split times for swimming, running, cycling, and transitioning were obtained from the official Ironman® website. To investigate the locations of the fastest Ironman® 70.3 competitions between 2004 and 2020, a full sample of 852,721 qualifying records throughout 197 different event locations was processed. These race records were aggregated by location, and each location’s split and full finish times were calculated. Data analysis was performed first for the full sample (all race records), and then for an elite sub-sample consisting of the top 100 males and top 100 females records in each location.

Results: For the full sample, the fastest overall race times were achieved in Ironman® 70.3 Zell am See (Austria). For the top 100 athletes sub-sample, the Ironman® 70.3 European Championship Elsinore and Ironman® 70.3 World Championship were the fastest courses.

Conclusion: These results are useful for athletes’ strategic planning and inform event organisers about the strengths of different courses, aiding in the optimisation and promotion of future Ironman® 70.3 races worldwide.

Keywords: endurance, performance, half-distance Ironman®, multi-sport, running.