IRONMAN 70.3 · World Championship · Slots

Age-graded slots, year one: who made it to the 70.3 Worlds in Nice

The first World Championship under the new slot rules changed who got there, not how fast each age group's qualifiers were.

By Blame the Course · 3 October 2026 · 5 min read

46%of the athletes in Nice were women (41% in 2025)

1 in 55men under 30 who finished a qualifying race made it (1 in 46 in 2025)

1 in 7women 50–59 made it (1 in 15 in 2025)

What changed in 2026

Until the 2025 season, each qualifying race shared its World Championship slots among its age groups, in proportion to how many athletes started in each. From the 2026 season, each age group's winner is offered a slot first (then 2nd, then 3rd, until one takes it), and the rest of the race's slots go down a single ranking of age-graded times: each finish adjusted by its age group's factor, so that a 62-year-old and a 34-year-old can be compared. At 70.3 races, men and women each have their own slots and their own ranking.

The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice, in September 2026, was the first raced by athletes who earned their slots that way. It is the first chance to see what the new rules did to the field.

Who made it

6,383 age-group athletes took a slot for Nice, 46% of them women, up from 41% in Marbella in 2025. To see which age groups the rules favoured, compare each age band's share of the athletes in Nice with its share of the season's finishes at qualifying races.

Overall, the odds of making it improved, from one athlete per 28 qualifying finishes to one per 20, for a plain reason: the season was shorter, with 93 qualifying race years against 125 the year before, for about the same number of places. Against that, the shift is clear. Men under 30 were 19% of the season's qualifying finishes but 7% of the field in Nice; a year earlier they were 10% of the field in Marbella. Women 50–59 were 3% of the finishes and 8% of Nice. Places moved from athletes under 40, men above all, to athletes over 40, women above all. Men in their forties hardly moved.

Age band	Share of the qualifying finishes	Share of Nice	Made it, 2026	Made it, 2025
Men under 30	19.3%	6.9%	1 in 55	1 in 46
Men 30–39	24.2%	12.5%	1 in 38	1 in 41
Men 40–49	19.6%	15.5%	1 in 25	1 in 35
Men 50–59	11.1%	11.5%	1 in 19	1 in 32
Men 60 and over	3.7%	7.4%	1 in 10	1 in 19
Women under 30	6.4%	8.6%	1 in 15	1 in 19
Women 30–39	6.9%	13.0%	1 in 10	1 in 16
Women 40–49	5.0%	12.3%	1 in 8	1 in 15
Women 50–59	2.9%	8.4%	1 in 7	1 in 15
Women 60 and over	0.9%	4.1%	1 in 4	1 in 8
Everyone			1 in 20	1 in 28

Each age band's share of the championship field, against its share of the qualifying finishes

2025, Marbella (slots per age group)2026, Nice (age-graded slots): a bigger share2026: a smaller share

1× means the band had the same share of the championship field as of the season's finishes at qualifying races. An athlete who finished two qualifying races counts twice.

Each age band was about as fast as before

Fewer places did not make the young men in Nice any faster. With the course and the day taken out (Nice played 17% slower than the median 70.3 course), men under 30 in Nice finished 24% faster than men under 30 at a typical 70.3, about the same as in 2025. Each women's band was within a point or two of where it was the year before; the men from 30 up were 2 to 3 points less far ahead. The whole field was 16% faster than a typical field, against 18% in 2025.

So the new rules changed who got to the championship, much more than how fast each age group's qualifiers were.

How high up they finished to qualify

Of the athletes matched to the race they qualified at, 14% had won their age group there (16% in 2025), 25% finished 2nd or 3rd (28%), 39% 4th to 10th (37%) and 21% 11th or lower (19%). A slot reached a little further down the results than before.

Where a slot was hardest to earn

By IRONMAN's slot lists, a slot was hardest to earn at races in Europe: about one slot for every 21 finishes, against 16 in North America and 13 in Asia. The European qualifiers in Nice had typically finished 3rd in their age group; North America's, 6th.

Qualifying races in	Races	Finishes	Slots	One slot per	Athletes in Nice	Their typical place
Europe	24	42,467	2,070	21 finishes	1,958	3rd
Oceania	8	10,044	510	20 finishes	307	7th
Latin America	23	24,146	1,370	18 finishes	1,230	5th
North America	21	34,599	2,230	16 finishes	1,960	6th
Africa & Middle East	6	4,948	320	15 finishes	277	3rd
Asia	11	8,291	640	13 finishes	432	4th

Two more things stand out. Oceania's races offered 510 slots, but only 307 athletes in Nice had qualified at them: Nice is a long way from Australia and New Zealand, and many of those slots were likely never taken. And Europeans travelled: 1 in 4 European athletes in Nice (586 of 2,466) qualified at a race outside Europe. The races that sent the most athletes were 70.3 Mont-Tremblant (104), Oceanside (96) and Eagleman (92).

What to watch at Kona

IRONMAN's 2026 season used age-graded slots too, with one total per race split between women and men by their share of starters. The IRONMAN World Championship in Kona on 10 October is the first at the full distance under those rules. Its page on this site fills in the same figures as soon as its results are in: who made it, from where, and how hard it was.

Each athlete's qualifying race is the one they most likely took their slot at; 3% weren't matched to one (Legacy, lottery or other entries, or a race not in the data). Measured from IRONMAN's public results. Course and day speeds come from the athletes who raced more than one course; "typical" is the median of the same measure across races of the distance. Figures as of 3 October 2026. Blame the Course is independent and not affiliated with IRONMAN.