Ironman Austria 2019: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification

This week’s big European Ironman is Ironman Austria. Austria is a large race with almost 2,800 starters and offers the standard 40 Kona slots for age group athletes. This years race looks to have been a little slower than the average, but not too significantly. Austria saw some storms, but not quite the extreme’s of heat or rain seen i the previous couple of weeks.

Both swim and bike trended slower than the previous decade this year. The shift appears to be consistent from front to back of pack in both cases. The run remained similar to previous results, but the longer swim and bike times mean the finish times also trend slower. The difference appears to be around 20-25 minutes at the median for overall times.

The DNF rate this year was on the high side for Austria with the bike and swim being the areas that saw the most change. the only time Austria has seen a higher level of DNFs was back in 2012 when heat was a major issue.

The median age group splits follow the trends shown in the distributions above: slower swim and bike medians. The pattern is almost universal with the odd exception like the F40-44 bike which trends a little faster than usual this year.

It’s a very diverse field in Austria with only a quarter from Austria itself. That said they appear to hold on to nearly half the slots with the rest being broadly distributed.

There has been some variation in age group times by position over the years. Some of it relating to conditions, some variations in the course and the competitive field. generally for the largest age groups times have been quite stable, particularly towards the front of the race. 2019 actually appears to be quite comparable with the previous year which also saw a shift of around 20 minutes at the median.

Based on the start numbers I’ve calculated the Kona slot allocation and from that the automatic qualifying times at this race. Final numbers may vary and I don’t account for roll down in these statistics. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.

Times for the top twenty in each age group generally trend a bit behind the average, but not as much as they did in 2018. The gap is small, particularly towards the very front of each division. In a few cases, such as F55-59, we see faster than average results from the age group.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Austria 2019 on my Google Drive.