Ironman Austria 2025: Age Group Stats and Qualification Times
Our second analysis from the weekend is for Ironman Austria. A long standing race generally regarded as fast, although these days there are a few more European races overshadowing it. It’s very consistent and this year’s race demonstrates that with results largely holding to the averages.
Also, this was my first Ironman, you’ll find me in the results somewhere if you dig back to 2007? I think, it’s been a long time now!
Result Distributions
We’ll have to look for minor variations here. The only difference I’d really pick up on is the slightly slower run which seems to lead to a slightly slower median time. The swim was slower at the front, but slightly faster at the mid-pack – a more condensed performance than usual. But these are all small variations meaning this year is very much on par with recent years.
DNF Rates
The DNF rate is a little bit higher than usual. This is spread evenly over bike and run DNFs. The higher bike DNF numbers are more unusual than the run.
Median Splits
As I always say – median splits follow the pattern of the distributions. That means there’s no clear pattern to this year’s times other than being similar to past times for the race.
Competitor Origins
We get a diverse range of European athletes at this race. Very much the norm for mainland Europe. Qualification slots spread reasonably proportionally across these.
Performance Changes
The bigger age groups tend to show a pattern of consistency across the years. This year’s race maybe slowing slightly for some age group positions, but not lying far outside of recent races. Front-of-pack positions tending to be more stable than those further back.
Qualification
Based on the start numbers I’ve calculated the expected slot allocation for the race and from that the final qualifying times assuming no roll down. You’ll find an interactive version of this table here. There are at least two roll downs from older age groups with no finishers.
Age Group Top 20
For the majority of age groups the top 20 hold close to the race average. None stand out as exceptional or unusual. We’re very much looking at a typical year of racing where my race average qualification times would give a good indication of performance requirements.
Conclusion
Events that stick so close to the averages don’t tend to make for interesting analysis, but they’re probably what we want when we line up to race. Austria tends to be a consistent course, few years deviate from course norms. That’s clearly the case in 2025.