Which Country has the World's Fastest Ironman Triathletes?

Which countries have the fastest triathletes? It's an often debated question, particularly when it comes to comparing one ironman race to another. Are the athletes in Europe faster than those in the US? Australia faster than Canada?

Taking results of the world's best triathletes -- their finishing times from the 2011 Ironman Triathlon World Championship -- we compared each country's top finisher across all age groups. Among the men, the countries with the fastest finishers were USA, Germany and Australia. Among the women, USA, Germany and Canada took fastest honors.

Here are the rankings, followed by comparisons of top finishers's times by country for several of the largest age groups competing in Kona 2011.

For this and all other charts below, each bar represents the finish time of the fastest athlete representing that country. In this example of the M50-54 age group, Australia's fastest finisher's time was 9:42, while Brazil's fastest finisher crossed the line with a time of 11:45.

Ranking the Best Races: Data, Alignment, Perspective and Balance

Ironman Kona Hawaii 2011 Results Analysis

For more, see our Complete Ironman Kona Coverage. For everything else, ironman.com.

Marathon Comparisons: Chicago, New York City, Marine Corps

More than 100,000 runners choose to run the Chicago Marathon, New York City Marathon or the Marine Corps Marathon. Which of the three is fastest? We ran the numbers by age group for each race, and here are the results.

 

Chicago Marathon 2011: Fastest US Cities and States

Which major cities had the fastest runners at the 2011 Chicago Marathon? Of these 25 major cities with 10,000 runners (7,000 from Chicago), the Top 5 Fastest cities were New York City, Portland, Minneapolis, Arlington VA and Washington DC. Notable mention goes to cities with many fewer finishers but impressive times, e.g., Annapolis (3:47), Philadelphia (4:07)and Anchorage (4:14).

Which states were fastest? Slowest? Top 5 fastest states were North Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon, Delaware and Vermont. Slowest runners were from Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Arkansas and Alabama. The average time for Illinois was the slowest overall, but that is due, of course, to a significant number of first-time marathoners whose times skew results.

Fastest City in the World? See our Interactive Global Map featuring finishers and average times for 6000 cities. For more, see our Complete Chicago Marathon Coverage.

Chicago Marathon 2011 Interactive Map: Average Finish Time by City

Nearly 36,000 runners from about 6000 cities across the globe finished the 2011 Chicago Marathon in an average time of 4:40. But the times of course varied by geography. We calculated the number of finishers and average finish time for each of those 6000 cities and embedded them into eight maps below: North America, Chicago Area, Midwest, East Coast, South Central, West Coast, Europe, and the entire globe.

Scroll, zoom and click on the green dots to reveal the city's Chicago Marathon stats. Also see our Top 25 Cities Finish Time Comparisons and our Complete Chicago Marathon Coverage.

North America Chicago Area Midwest East Coast South Central West Coast Europe Global

Chicago Marathon 2011 Results Analysis

1. Average finish times by age group 

More than 20,000 men finished the 2011 Chicago Marathon; the average male finishing time was 4:29:27. The average finish time of the more than 15,000 women finishers was 4:55:54, and the overall average for all finishers was 4:40:53.

2. Ranking of finish times for 25 major US cities

Which major cities had the fastest runners at the 2011 Chicago Marathon? Of these 25 major cities with 10,000 runners (7,000 from Chicago), the Top 5 Fastest cities were New York City, Portland, Minneapolis, Arlington VA and Washington DC. Notable mention goes to cities with many fewer finishers but impressive times, e.g., Annapolis (3:47), Philadelphia (4:07)and Anchorage (4:14).

3. Highlighting the fastest US States sorted by average finish time 

Which states were fastest? Slowest? Top 5 fastest states were North Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon, Delaware and Vermont. Slowest runners were from Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Arkansas and Alabama. The average time for Illinois was the slowest overall, but that is due, of course, to a significant number of first-time marathoners whose times skew results.

4. Comparison of Chicago, New York City and Marine Corps Marathon times by age group

Which marathon is harder: New York City, Chicago or Marine Corps? For most age groups, New York runners deliver the fastest times. Chicago is second, and Marine Corps Marathon is the hardest in most age groups, though in many age groups, average finish times aren't significantly higher than Chicago.

5. Predicting Your Marathon Finish Time After Running 13.1 Miles. We all know the feeling: reaching the 13.1 mile point in a marathon and wondering how fast we can run the rest of the marathon. Undoubtedly, most of the nearly 36,000 finishers in the 2011 Chicago Marathon at one time or another asked themselves: how fast will I run the second half of the race?

We did the analysis for all finishers, by age group, and the answer is: for the average male marathoner from age 16 to 55, your split for miles 13.1 to 26.2 will = your split for the first 13.1 miles plus 21 or so minutes. For women aged 16 to 49, double your 13.1 mile split and add about 18 minutes.

6. Interactive Map with finishers and average finish times for 6000 global cities

We calculated the number of finishers and average finish time for each of those 6000 cities and embedded them into eight interactive maps: North America, Chicago Area, Midwest, East Coast, South Central, West Coast, Europe, and the entire globe. The North American example is shown below. To see all maps, visit Chicago Marathon Global Finisher Interactive Maps.

North America

Chicago Marathon Photos

We were all over the course, shooting photos from the 2011 Chicago Marathon. A sample of our collection is presented here. For advice, analysis and more, see our Complete Chicago Marathon Coverage.