Ironman Canada is my second race analysis of the week. Canada drew a field of around 1500 athletes for the standard allocation of 40 age group Kona slots. The course has never been particularly fast, but this year’s change to the bike route appear to have slowed things even further.

The impact of the new bike course is quite clear in the distribution of splits. A much slower bike and a much slower run following it, which naturally means the overall results trend a lot slower. As well as course changes, conditions were hot which likely helps account for the large shift in run times.

DNS and DNF Rates at Ironman Canada Year Listed Athletes Swim Finish Swim DNS/DNF Bike Finish Bike DNF Run Finish Run DNF Overall DNS/DNF 2013 2171 2122 2.3% 2065 2.7% 1985 3.9% 8.6% 2014 1899 1852 2.5% 1752 5.4% 1679 4.2% 11.6% 2015 1948 1719 11.8% 1540 10.4% 1502 2.5% 22.8% 2016 1405 1254 10.7% 1199 4.4% 1130 5.8% 19.6% 2017 1271 1263 0.6% 1201 4.9% 1147 4.5% 9.7% 2018 1470 1456 1% 1342 7.8% 1187 11.5% 20.8%

With a tough course and conditions we see increases in bike and more significantly run DNF rates at the 2018 race. Bearing in mind the mix of DNS and DNF numbers in races before 2016 this year’s race has the highest levels of DNF for this event.





The age group medians naturally follow the distributions’s trends with slower bike and run splits.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Canada Country Count Percentage United States 843 51.8 Canada 491 30.2 Mexico 55 3.4 United Kingdom 45 2.8 Australia 17 1 Costa Rica 16 1 Germany 14 0.9 Spain 11 0.7 Japan 10 0.6 New Zealand 10 0.6

Ironman Canada 2018 Predicted Kona Qualifiers by Country Country Percentage of Slots Percentage of Field United States 50.0 51.8 Canada 30.0 30.2 New Zealand 5.0 0.6 Brazil 2.5 0.4 Spain 2.5 0.7 Ireland 2.5 0.4 Sweden 2.5 0.3 Germany 2.5 0.9

The majority of athletes are North American, but roughly a fifth come from further afield.





Tracking the changes in times for specific age group positions shows a little more variation across the age groups. The largest male age groups most clearly show a slowing at this year’s race, but for men under 30 and for a number of female age groups the pattern is less consistent. Some faired better on the new course and in the heat than others.

Ironman Canada 2018 Predicted Kona Qualification Times Age Group Slots Winner Average Kona Qualifier Final Qualifier M18-24 1 10:36:31 10:36:31 10:36:31 M25-29 2 09:26:02 09:27:49 09:29:36 M30-34 3 09:04:21 09:42:20 10:01:51 M35-39 3 09:40:24 10:02:37 10:17:30 M40-44 3 10:22:31 10:31:34 10:48:24 M45-49 3 10:02:31 10:07:52 10:10:44 M50-54 3 10:53:58 11:08:34 11:17:06 M55-59 2 11:11:13 11:14:23 11:17:33 M60-64 1 11:17:38 11:17:38 11:17:38 M65-69 1 12:36:47 12:36:47 12:36:47 M70-74 1 14:50:46 14:50:46 14:50:46 F18-24 1 10:54:33 10:54:33 10:54:33 F25-29 2 11:24:53 11:32:13 11:39:34 F30-34 1 10:35:43 10:35:43 10:35:43 F35-39 2 10:34:36 10:54:45 11:14:55 F40-44 2 10:49:02 11:03:47 11:18:32 F45-49 2 11:03:45 11:26:19 11:48:53 F50-54 2 11:34:42 11:50:33 12:06:25 F55-59 1 12:57:49 12:57:49 12:57:49 F60-64 1 13:43:11 13:43:11 13:43:11 F65-69 1 16:19:06 16:19:06 16:19:06 F70-74 1 16:59:28 16:59:28 16:59:28

Based on the start list, I’ve estimated the allocation of Kona slots and from that the automatic qualifying times. Actual numbers may vary and roll down will affect the final qualifying times. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.





The top twenty in most age groups are the slowest seen for this race. There are a few exceptions, the divisions mentioned previous, where they trend closer to the averages. Even so, the race is consistently a slower event.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Canada 2018 on my Google Drive.