How fast is a Kona slot, actually?
Every IRONMAN finish time is public. We take every finisher at every race and rank them the way IRONMAN does now — age-graded, men and women on one list — so you can see exactly where a time lands.
What each age group needed
The Kona Standard
Your finish time × your group's multiplier = your age-graded time. Every non-winner at a race is ranked on that one number, men and women together. Only the top of the list goes to Kona.
| Age | Men | Women |
|---|
Race by race — most recent edition, 2026 rules
| Race | Edition | Finishers | Slots | Pool cutoff age-graded | M40–44 needs | F40–44 needs |
|---|
Cutoff is the age-graded time of the last Performance Pool slot after every age-group winner takes one, with no roll-down. "Needs" divides that cutoff back out by the group's standard — the raw finish time that would have made the pool. Slot counts marked ~ are assumed, not verified.
How qualifying works now
Winners go first
Each age-group winner, men and women separately, gets an automatic slot. If they decline, it rolls to second, then third.
Everyone else is age-graded
Every remaining slot goes into one Performance Pool. Each athlete's finish time is multiplied by their group's Kona Standard, and the whole field is ranked on that number regardless of age or sex.
The list rolls down
Slots go to the highest-ranked athletes who accept, in order. Roughly 3,000 Kona slots exist across the season; at a typical race, two to four percent of finishers get one.