When it comes to endurance sport it is hard to think of events more iconic than the Boston Marathon and the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Though there are hundreds of marathons and dozens of ironman races held worldwide, for decades these two events have represented the gold standard for runners and iron distance triathletes.
The key difference with these two races, and the thing that sets them apart from the rest, is the fact that they require athletes to qualify based on performance. And it’s NOT easy to qualify.
Boston Marathon
Boston has a set of qualifying times that many athletes know like the back of their hand. They rarely change, although they went down by a whole 5 minutes recently! The times on the chart below are fairly self-explanatory, and if you don’t happen to be a runner you can take it from me that they aren’t easy to achieve – especially in the younger age groups.
Ironman World Championships – Kona
There are 27 Ironman races worldwide each year. To qualify for the World Championships 
in Hawaii an athlete needs to finish one of these races at or very near the top of their age group – a feat that is becoming incredibly difficult to do. There are no exact qualifying times as there are for Boston, but most would agree the standards are even more difficult to meet… for example: In 2011 a male between 30-34 would have needed to complete Ironman Canada in less than 9:58:00 to qualify for Kona – this would have placed him 6th out of 206 in his age group.
So, clearly, competing in either of these races (Boston or Kona) is an incredible achievement, one that signifies that an athlete is not only taking on impressive challenges like running 26.2 miles or completing an ironman (2.4mile swim, 112mile cycle, 26.2 mile run) but that the athlete is REALLY fast – amongst the very best in his or her age category. Many endurance athletes make it their lifetime goal to qualify and compete in Boston or Kona. When you see a runner wearing a Boston Marathon jacket or a Ford Ironman World Championship finisher’s shirt you know that they are athletically gifted, have worked extremely hard or more likely both… unless they happen to be disabled athletes.
Qualification for Athletes with a Disability – Boston
Let me start by saying that I believe the Boston Athletic Association has done a lot to encourage participation, inspiration, and other noteworthy good things with their policies regarding disabled athletes. You can read about all they’ve done HERE. The thing is that Boston isn’t supposed to be about participation. It’s supposed to be about PERFORMANCE.
I am a below-knee athlete and my qualifying time for the Boston Marathon is 8:00:00. Yes EIGHT HOURS!!
For those of you who don’t run and aren’t sure what that time means… it means, “if you are missing a leg we’re happy to have you here.”
I have never tried but I am pretty certain I could walk the marathon in eight hours. More importantly I know that MANY below-knee amputees can run a marathon in a time between 3 and 4 hours. The fastest I have heard of is sub-3 hours.
The qualifying time for visually impaired athletes is 5:00:00 – whether they are B1, B2 or B3. This says to me, “We don’t feel like taking the time to figure out what a ‘good’ time would be, and we don’t really want to have to think about levels of impairment, so let’s call it 5.”
They are significantly further ahead when it comes to wheelchair racing, and as far as I can see they have a good set of criteria for this group.
Qualification for Athletes with a Disability – Kona
Again, I don’t want to seem like I don’t appreciate what Ironman has done for disabled sport. The widely viewed NBC production each year tends to feature a disabled athlete, and thus Ironman has done a lot for people’s perceptions of what is possible. It has also made more disabled athletes famous than almost any other type of event… even the Paralympics. In doing so, Ironman, and triathlon generally, has become the “go to” event for a lot of disabled folks.
To “qualify” for Kona a disabled athlete (non-wheelchair division) needs to “apply” for the lottery and hope that his or her name be drawn. 5 are drawn each year. No qualifying times, nothing to do with performance… there is a nice long space to “tell your story” however… Interestingly wheelchair athletes ALL have to go to one race in Buffalo Springs to duke it out – better start saving if you are from South Africa – you’ll need to fly yourself, your hand-cycle and your wheelchair to Texas in June AND to Hawaii in October. You will have EARNED your bragging rights though, and for that I envy you.
As an athlete who has competed at Ironman and run marathons I feel as though the cherry has been stolen from my sundae. I can “participate” all over the world, have a real blast even. I can waltz into Boston (every year until I’m 80 probably), and I am sure that if I keep applying I can race over in Hawaii one day. Pity it won’t mean anything more than any other race… and how annoying when people say “WOW, you qualified for Kona – WAY TO GO!” to have to then let them know that ‘qualifying’ for me was filling out an online form and crossing my fingers.
As world leaders in their sports and in disabled sport generally, I would expect more from these two iconic events.
What do you think of Meyrick’s take? What selection criteria would you like to see employed by the Boston Marathon and the Ironman World Championships? Or do you have a story about ‘qualifying’ for an event?
Meyrick is a below-knee amputee. He has competed internationally in triathlon as well as at the national level in cross-country skiing and cycling. He is an active advocate of paratriathlon and sits on the Triathlon Board of Directors and the Triathlon Canada Para High Performance Committee.
Meyrick owns Innovative Fitness locations in West Vancouver and Port Moody, where he and his staff of Professional Training Coaches help people reach their potential in fitness, sport and health.
Agree wholeheartedly with this post. I wonder how they set the qualifying times for mainstream athletes. I mean if they are just taking the top 2% of average finishers, why not do something similar for disabled athletes. You should have to earn your way into events like these and the barriers could be set differently but to be equally as challenging for the disabled athlete.
Great article Meyrick. As a Canadian visually impaired Paratriathlete, I have a bit of first hand knowledge about the “qualifying” subject.
First off i’d like to agree 100% that Boston and Kona have done a LOT for PC athletes; garnering a much needed level of respect for us as individuals and not “special cases”. However this is where they hypocricy comes into play a bit.
These two world class, bucket list, lifelong goal races showcase PC athletes as capable, talented, athletic, “normal”, competitive and high performance, yet on the other hand they have set extremely vague qualifying standards or no standard at all.
If we are such high performance athletes, like the rest who to the line or bob about in Kailua Bay, then why not let us earn out stripes with pride like the rest?
My personal experience has come with Kona. Now i want to note this is a very conflicting topic for me a bit, as a PC athlete looking at Kona you have to choose… Apply for the lottery/take a lesser route to the start line and race at the big show (because it’s your only option) or hold tight to your morals and never race the big show (because they’ve not given you a way to get in like everyone else)?
I faced this dilemma in 2008 when i was racing age group but with continually fading vision and the end of my solo career in sight. I was definately not fast enough to qualify to get in, however I knew I wouldn’t be racing solo at a later age, to get a lot more chances to qualify. So i caved. I applied, sent letters, etc, and asked for my “bucket list” wish at the age of 28. “Can i race kona now, as i’ll never get a chance to race it solo again?” The good and the bad–they let me in. Being in Kona i never felt like i really belonged there, i felt like i “cheated” to get in, but i knew it was my only shot solo. Long story short, it was my 6th Ironman and my worst race ever, and only DNF of my career. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
I still faced those questions…”wow you qualified for kona? How’d ya do that?”
I got my shot, it didn’t work out as planned..but now i am left with only one option to get back as a PC athlete….ENTER THE LOTTERY.
I desperately want to go back to Kona and finish the race that kicked my butt, but i dont’ want to go back on a “freebie” again…
Wheelchair athletes get a shot to qualify…..as a VI athlete or even amputees….why can’t we have the same option?
I want to goto Boston as well, but setting a goal of 5 hours? Really? I dont’ want to go again on almost a “freebie” .
This is no slight to those that have gone to Kona or Boston on a “freebie” and kicked butt and shown what PC athletes can do. However, I don’t think we should have to walk around with tongue in cheek when people ask “how’d you qualify”.
So Boston and Kona, set a standard for us to chase. Let us feel the same pride age groupers feel when they make it to the big show.
If the rules never change, does that mean i’ll never go to Boston at least once or Kona again? Probably not…if i only have one option, i’ll use it; however i’d prefer to be treated like every other athlete and grind it out a bit in order to get my slot.
That’s my rambling 2 cents!
Thanks for sharing Ryan. I think your ‘rambling 2 cents’ is a fantastic portrayal of the conflicting emotions these selection policies generate!
As an able bodied athlete I also have my list of ‘bucket’ races – some with very tough qualifying criteria – and I’m not sure what I would do if a ‘freebie’ was offered to me… Who am I kidding? I’d probably take it! As you say in your closing comments – if there was only one option available to me I would take it. My attitude as an athlete has always been to leap at opportunities when they appear – and worry about if I’ve gotten in over my head later… actually that’s how I got involved in adaptive sport in the first place… Courtney needed a guide ASAP for a world cup race and I put up my hand first…
EDIT: With regards to above post, I just wanted to add one more thing. Despite my desire to have qualifying standards for PC athletes, I do wish to state how greatly thankful I am to the WTC for giving me my one shot. It is not the way i pictured getting in, nor how i pictured the race going, but WTC did grant me my “wish” and for that experience (good or bad) i am thankful.
This is slightly misleading because it is not only disabled athletes who are eligible for the Kona draw. Many triathletes are able to race in Kona, disabled or not, without having to qualify.
Hi Robert – you’re right – there are lottery spots available to able-bodied triathletes as well. 100 age-group athletes and 100 legacy athletes are awarded spots each year based on the lottery. But for athletes with a disability it looks like the lottery is the ONLY way to qualify and I think that is an important distinction.
Oh, I see… I didn’t realize that
Neither did I until you encouraged me to look it up
Unlike many purists, I have no problem with the concept of a lottery, or selling some spots for charity or corporate sponsorship slots… these are all reasonable and there is a valid case to be made for each.
My article is, I hope, just stating the valid case for establishing challenging standards for qualifying disabled athletes for these events. The purpose being to extend the aura and exclusivity of these iconic events to another group of athletes so that they can experience the same pride of accomplishment as an able-bodied athlete who manages to qualify for Boston or Kona.
I didn’t want my article to get WAY too long so I didn’t include any suggestions about what the qualifying processes should look like.
For Boston it is pretty simple… lower the time. How far depends on the category and age group of the athlete. I would suggest mirroring Paralympic categories and then consulting the corresponding athlete groups for suggestions. Probably requires some sort of a project manager / statistician etc.
For Ironman it is a little more complicated as the tradition is to qualify based on head-to-head competition with other athletes. In many of these categories there are so few athletes that this wouldn’t work. So I would suggest setting a qualifying time for each category – and then use that base time to come up with age group and gender range of times. Again it is a project that a statistician would make short work of. Another alternative might be to say that to qualify for Kona a disabled athlete needs to finish in the top 50% (or 40%, or whatever…) of an Ironman field at another race. (Those numbers to be adjusted for age / category / gender etc. That would be really easy and would take into account conditions on the day.
It’s not simple but I bet there is a University masters student out there who could make it a thesis or something and get the work done for free (Andrea?)
Cheers,
MJ
How funny – I just got an email from an HKIN prof asking if anyone needed some undergrad lackeys to work on a project. I think coming up with a formula to determine qualifying times sounds like a great project…
Standards are never easy to create, but I wholeheartedly agree that easy standards like those for the Boston Marathon do take away from the thrill of participating in the event. For London 2012, the visually impaired men have to run 2:55.00 for A standard – certainly more of a challenge than 5:00.00!! The only problem is IPC doesn’t publish standards for all classes – there are no standards for visually impaired women for the marathon at the 2012 Games, but certainly they could extrapolate something based on the men’s standard or at least consider previous Games standards….
Do you have any idea why they have qualifying standards for visually impaired men but not women? how big are the fields in the marathon typically? Do they not have enough data on the women to come up with a standard?
Good post Meryick. I’m nominating you to be a full member of the AthletesFirst ‘Team’ with all your contribution on here – hardly a guest post:)
One of the major challenges in setting standards for the IPC across classes is a lack of recorded performances. For instance, in my class T38, since the 800m was taken off the Paralympic program there is usually only 2-3 performances on the world list every year, one of which is usually way slower. I imagine that it is even tougher tracking down the performances in road races and triathlons. That being said, I agree with Meyrick that it smacks of “We don’t feel like taking the time to figure out what a ‘good’ time would be, and we don’t really want to have to think about levels of impairment, so let’s call it 5.” and I think standards could be set if you talked to the right groups of people.
I’m not a big supporter of functional classification on level of impairment across disability classes as I think it is pretty hard to compare the functional, developmental and training changes across impairment types. However, I would be supportive for large events like this in allowing participation from all classes based on adequate standards that are able to complete the distances within the reasonable restrictions of the event organisers. Choosing an adequate standard won’t ever be perfect, but it’d be better than the current situation.
Thanks for the nomination Blair
I actually think the matter being discussed in my post may be inextricably linked to the key matter in your post about the boys – the media.
Let’s think… why would these races qualify disabled athletes this way? Do we really think there is zero logic behind the methods they’ve chosen? I doubt it.
So what then might the logic be??
It has often crossed my mind that what the race organizers might want to “get” from disabled athletes is the next great “inspirational” story for the media… and frankly, as has been discussed before on this blog, that seldom has anything to do with the time on the clock when the disabled athlete in question crosses the finish line.
So why start limiting the number of disabled entrants to a race like the Boston Marathon with pesky qualifying times? That would only cut the number of potential storylines… after all the 7 hour athlete missing three limbs because of an anti-tank mine in Iraq might book a spot on Letterman while the 3:45 athlete missing only one limb due to a circulatory issues won’t get a great deal of attention.
Wow… that’s a jaded viewpoint… but, alas, it has crossed my mind – especially with Ironman’s complete lack of a process and large spot to “tell your story”. (Andrea is it too late to give me a code name in case they read this?)
So whether it’s the opportunism, capitalism, ignorance or just plain laziness of organizers I’m not sure – but performance standards don’t appear to be on the radar at all which puts these policies in a direct contradiction with the spirit of the events.
In regards to this most recent MJ, i agree that almost never do you see or hear of the times the “inspiring athlete” completes the course. As a PC athlete, i realize that people draw inspiration from waht i do–sometimes i dont’ really understand it, as to me there is no other choice. I think what gets me fired up is when people are “inspired” by me but have a total lack of respect for me as an athlete. They don’t care HOW i complete the race or in what time, they are just “so darn proud of me” for completing it. This is my jaded opinion on the topic. I have spoke a LOT about being respected as an athlete, not as a “special case”. YES, we as PC athletes are somewhat used for promotion and that is fine, if i can inspire somebody, great. Heck, myself as a PC athlete have never seen a more inspiring photo then that of you Meyrick guiding a fellow blind athlete in Penticton….I mean an amputee piloting a tandem? How friggin cool is that? What i find however is the respect as an athlete comes a lot from fellow PC athletes. It is with fellow PC athletes that i find the greatest deal of competitiveness and interest in “how fast did you swim, bike or run that race?” I think having such a laid back approach to time standards, on the sliding scale, puts us closer to “special case” then it does to the other end as “compeitivie athlete”. Set the standards high. (realistically high)…if i fail, i will fail trying my darndest. We are often given a lot of leeway in life becasue of our disabilities–not always asked for—
It’s such a fine line, using PC athletes for inspiration….as long as inspiration still coincides with respect, i’m a happy camper.
I for one am not asking for a super huge wide margin of error to get into the BIG SHOW…i want to earn it.
Buttttt, as i said before, if they only give me one option…ie. lottery, i guess i’ll have to take it…..:(
I feel the same way… I didn’t mean for it to seem like I am against the inspirational story side of things – I’m all for it. In fact if they want to have media slots to get those great stories into the race (if they aren’t reaching qualifying times) I say “go for it”. They do this already I’m sure.
Like you, I just want the process to be fixed so that I can be proud of an accomplishment like hitting an impressive qualifying time. I hate the fact that when I go to those races (they are on my goals list) there will be a “but” or an asterisk beside my name. I will always tell people the “but the standards are low” because I hate the idea of anyone thinking I am masquerading as a real qualifier if I just wrote a letter.
Not complaining about being used for “inspirational stories” – I have experienced that lots of times and if anything it’s been very flattering and allowed me to continue doing what I love to do which is help people…
Hey MJ,
I have been fighting with WTC on a yearly basis to allow me to enter their precious lottery as a PC athlete, however, I have been told that since I am not in a chair, missing a limb, or visually impaired, basically, I am not PC enough and therefore I am not eligible. I believe we have had this conversation before about Kona and how there isn’t even an event that you as a BK can qualify for the World Champs but you can enter the lottery. I doubt I will try another IM unless they finally allow me to enter the lottery for Kona or better yet, until they figure out some way to include ALL paratriathlon categories the same way the ITU does so I can try and qualify.
I know you know my frustration with classification of paratriathletes that are not obvious in the type of disability and since I do not write as well as you, maybe you can help us all out and see if we can lobby the WTC to include us on at least a few events in the IM schedule.
Thanks for the blog post.
Darren
Hey Darren,
Well, hopefully through websites like this, and the increasing number of eyeballs that read about this situation we’ll attract the *right* set of eyeballs.
I once sent letters directly to BAA and WTC… but one voice wasn’t enough to change anything and who knows if anyone even read them.
I tried Runner’s World and Triathlete Magazine but I think critiquing these races is a little racy for their pages.
I know some influential people have read this article… so my fingers are crossed.
WHEN the time for change does come I think we can all be quite hopeful that the process will be collaborative, experts in para sport will be consulted… the resulting changes would, no doubt, I hope, include cases like yours.
My goal currently, with articles like this one, is to get the topic added to an agenda where people can make a decision to improve the current system…
So keep sharing this link! Facebook, Twitter, influential friends… let them know…
There are many amputees where the nature of their amputation and/or prosthetics make it difficult for them to run at times you would consider easy. Since there are so few who actually participate, further reducing the numbers would be a bad thing in my opinion.
In 2011 at Boston there were >>>15<<< MI (Mobility Impaired) finishers, 12 men and 3 women. Last I saw there are maybe 6 this year…I am one of them. I would not be opposed to having an 'elite' category just like the able-bodied runners have, but I am completely against an elitist attitude that the few others would be denied such an opportunity because of more stringent times.
As an aside, isn't it curious amputee runners are not allowed – I would go so far as say discriminated – by the IPC to compete in distance running events from (I think) 800m and up in the Paralympics? Yet paratriathlon will soon be included. So great runners like Richard Whitehead and Rick Ball can not compete in their best event, cannot set the world records (which they erroneously claim) because only the IPC can make then official. I would like to see this terrible injustice remedied but there seems to be no traction to get it done.
I understand your point that while lower standards enable inclusion for others they also take out the ‘thrill’ of knowing you are one of the best…. but what is your proposed alternative?
It takes a lot of work to get these races to recognize categories such as visually impaired in the first place… criticizing the work they have done on this front seems to be working against everything that has been done just to enable participation.
If anything, the bragging rights that are the cherry on top should be your completion time, not the fact that you qualified…
I’m not surprised that I keep being asked (not just on this site) what my “proposed alternative” is… and in retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have worried about the article being too long! Obviously people’s attention span on the internet is longer than I thought!
I would never claim that organizing qualification standards for a range of disabilities, two genders, and many age groups is easy… but it’s not like it hasn’t been done by dozens of other sports. In the case of triathlon it has been done already for events like the ITU Paratriathlon World Championship. Until last year that event was Olympic distance and organizers said athletes should be able to complete within 3 hours. Pretty simple. Pretty reasonable.
I could lay out the exact qualification method that I would choose for Kona or Boston but that isn’t really the point. I am not overly concerned about HOW they do it but THAT THEY DECIDE TO DO IT. I am sure these organizers know the right people to call to get the job done right.
I may head to Boston, and I’d love to race in Kona if I get lucky in the lottery. Of course, I hope I will be very proud of my finishing times when I do, but it won’t be quite like it is for my cousin (as an example) who had to try 15+ times to qualify for Boston (sometimes missing by a handful of seconds…) and then finally did… Imagine how he felt!
The decision was made a long time ago to make these events about excellence rather than participation. (I’m sure there was outcry!) I wasn’t the architect of that plan… I just happen to think it was a great plan – and it made these events what they are… Now I’d like to see that same sentiment extended to disabled athletes.