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Kona: It’s quiet

In Ironman, Races, Simon Ward of TTC (October 6, 2009 4:36 am)

Traditionally most athletes seem to arrive in Kona on Sunday 6 days before the race, although the European athletes tend to arrive a bit earlier.

This means that Monday morning at the beach is usually heaving. Exit the water around 8am and you can’t move on the dockside. This year it seemd much quieter. As you can see from my video there were still plenty of people there but not as many as I would have expected to see or have seen in previous years.

Now maybe this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. After all we have been through the worst recession for quite some time and although triathlon on the whole seems to be bucking the trend, there is a limit.

Even from mainland US, it is still quite expensive to get to Hawaii and once on the Island living expenses are high. Given that most athletes would probably stop for 7 days and that this is one of the peak weeks of the year for Kona (and therefore you’d expect hotel & condo rates to be higher), it makes for a pretty expensive trip all round. Now multiply that figure by 4, if you have a partner and 2 children to bring with you.

There’s no doubt that many of the competitors qualify on a regular basis and to repeat that level of spending year after year can take a toll on the finances. So you can imagine the train of thought for these athletes.

“Do I need to take 3 other people with me?”
“Maybe I can share a condo with those 3 other guys I know”.
All of a sudden 16 guests (4 x 4) on the island becomes 4.

All that said, there’s still a buzz in the town and as in previous year’s the excitement will continue to build until Saturday. Maybe those athletes will arrive on Monday or Tuesday. Obviously we are hoping so because it’s important for CompuTrainer that the expo is busy and that business is brisk.

The Expo starts on Tuesday right after the athlete parade. We’ll be setting on Tuesday morning and I hope to bring you another video blog from the parade and the start of the expo.

Stay tuned for further updates!
Mahalo

Comments (1)

1 Comment »

1
Great video mate!

Really interesting for someone who’s never been to see what it’s like over there… sitting here on a dark rainy Yorkshire morning stuck in bed with man-flu ‘envious’ would be somewhat of an understatement though.

Give the Brits a shout from us,

T & H

Comment by Tom Williams — October 6, 2009 @ 6:30 am