Over 15,000 athletes from more than 129 nations and all 50 US states registered to participate in IRONMAN VR11. The IRONMAN VR11 Sprint distance simulation saw around 9,500 finishers.
The weekend event required athletes to complete a 3km run, 20km ride, and 5km run. This was between Friday, June 12 at 14:00. ET (18:00 GMT) and race close on Sunday, June 14 at 19:59 ET (23:59 GMT).
Competitors who raced in the, more popular, Classic Division could do so anywhere, indoors or outdoors. Here, athletes could complete the three segments in any order and were not required to do the segments consecutively.
The 3,000+ athletes who registered (1,500 finishers) for the second race in the new IRONMAN Virtual Racing Championship Series were bound by a different set of rules. Over a four-week long regulated age-group competition this is designed to reward top-performing athletes in a structured and competitive virtual environment.
In the Championship Series VR events an athlete’s overall standing is based upon their top three performances in aggregate over a four-week period. Athletes competing will have the opportunity to earn race slots to the 2020 edition of the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship with a total of 75 qualifying slots allocated across age groups for top performers.
IRONMAN VR Pro Challenge
The 11th edition of the IRONMAN VR Pro Challenge saw Nikki Bartlett of the UK and Ben Kanute of the USA take top honours in the women’s and men’s races respectively. For the second straight week, the professional triathletes took on a 3km in their home communities before hopping on their trainers for the bike portion. From there, athletes took on a 40km virtual bike ride on the newly offered IRONMAN 5150 Port Macquarie bike course, utilizing Official Virtual Cycling partner ROUVY’s platform.
IRONMAN Virtual Racing by the numbers
There have now been just over 132,000 finishes across all IRONMAN virtual races (VR1 to VR11).
From IRONMAN VR8 to VR9, athletes who wanted to compete in IRONMAN VR races with officially monitored times could sign up for the Challenger Division. Since VR10, this has now been renamed the Championship Series Division. Here, activities must be completed outdoors or on the ROUVY indoor cycling reality platform to log an official result (results as at time of writing):
IRONMAN VR11
Championship – 1,511 finishers (3,154 registered); Sprint simulation
Classic – 7,975 finishers (12,668 registered); Sprint simulation
IRONMAN VR10
Championship – 2,055 finishers (3,639 registered); 5150 simulation
Classic – 7,312 finishers (12,538 registered); 5150 simulation
IRONMAN VR9
Challenger – 2,148 finishers (3,830 registered); IM 70.3 simulation
Classic – 3,574 finishers (7,275 registered); IM 70.3 simulation
IRONMAN VR8
Challenger – 3,560 finishers (6,113 registered); 5150 simulation
Classic – 7,909 finishers (13,635 registered); 5150 simulation
IRONMAN VR7 – 17,085 finishers (25,014 registered); Sprint simulation
IRONMAN VR6 – 12,744 finishers (21,238 registered); 5150 simulation
IRONMAN VR5 – 8,257 finishers (14,881 registered); IM 70.3 simulation
IRONMAN VR4 – 14,549 finishers (23,743 registered); 5150 simulation
IRONMAN VR3 – 20,264 finishers (33,203 registered); Sprint simulation
IRONMAN VR2 –16,375 finishers (22,983 registered); 5150 simulation
IRONMAN VR1 – 6,695 finishers (11,039 registered); IM 70.3 simulation
www.ironmanvirtualclub.com
www.ironman.com
