Kona Performance Pool Cut Off: What 8 Races Took in 2026 (Estimate)

Our estimate for the last Kona Performance Pool slot in eight 2026 races is between 8:33 and 10:20 for men and between 9:45 and 11:56 for women, measured as a finish time for a 30-34 athlete. Those are age-graded times, not official cut-offs. IRONMAN doesn't publish a cut-off, so we worked it out from every finisher's result at the eight 2026 races that carry 2027 Kona slots and that are already in our database.

The fastest cut-off was at IRONMAN Tallinn for men (8:33) and IRONMAN Italy for women (9:45). The slowest was at IRONMAN Wales for both (10:20 for men, 11:56 for women). Below is every race, then what the number means for your age group.

How the Performance Pool works

Each age group's winner gets the first slot. The slots left go into one pool for men and one for women. Everyone not already in is ranked on age-graded time, which is your finish time with a discount for your age group. The fastest age-graded times fill the pool. Our guide to qualifying for Kona in 2027 covers the full process, including roll-down.

M30-34 and F30-34 are the benchmark groups, so their times count as they are. Everyone else gets a discount. A 50-54 man gets about 10% off, so a 9:00 finish counts as roughly 8:06. A 40-44 man gets about 3% off.

Men's Kona Performance Pool cut off by race

Races are listed fastest cut-off first. The last three columns show the finish time that matches the cut-off for that age group. If your finish time is faster than the number in your column, you would have been in the pool. Slots are our estimate of the men's share of IRONMAN's race total, with the pool part in brackets.

Women's Kona Performance Pool cut off by race

The women's pools are tiny, between 2 and 8 slots, because the age-group winners take most of the women's slots. One athlete either way can move the number by several minutes, so read these as a rough guide.

What it means for your age group

Find your age group's column in the tables and compare it with the finish time you can run. If you would have been faster than the number, you would have been in the pool. A 50-54 man at IRONMAN Italy, for example, needed about 9:48, while a 30-34 man needed 8:49. Same age-graded time, 59 minutes apart on the clock.

The last slot went to a different age group at almost every race. It was a 45-49 man at Tallinn and Vichy, a 55-59 man at Italy, a 30-34 man in Japan South Hokkaido and a 60-64 man at Wales. The discount helps older athletes, but fast athletes of every age end up in the same pool.

Which race should you pick?

The gap between races is big. For a 40-44 man, the estimated cut-off is about 9:07 at Italy and 9:34 at Chattanooga, against 10:40 at Wales. Wales is one of the hardest courses we track, so times there are slower for everyone, and the cut-off is slower too. At the same fitness, a slower course can be the easier route to a pool slot.

Do not stop at the cut-off. A race with a slower cut-off may also have a bigger field chasing the same slots. Our Kona slots per race for 2027 page shows slots per 100 finishers, and the easiest Kona races ranking sorts every full-distance race by the top-5% time. For a view by age group, see Kona qualifying times by age group.

Race pages like IRONMAN Wales and IRONMAN Italy show the full time spread for each age group.

Find your own number

Put your expected finish time into the race estimator to see where you would have placed in each race's field, in your age group. If you are racing 70.3 instead, that is a separate path to the 70.3 World Championship. See our 70.3 Worlds guide.

About the data

• These numbers are our estimate and are not official. We used the results of every finisher with a normal age group at the eight 2026 races that carry 2027 slots and are in our database: Tallinn, Vichy, Wales, Wisconsin, Japan South Hokkaido, Italy Emilia-Romagna, Chattanooga and Gurye. Professionals are left out.
• We gave one slot to the fastest finisher of each age group. We gave the slots that remain to the fastest age-graded times, men and women separately, using the 2027 Kona Standard factors.
• Slot numbers come from IRONMAN's 2027 list as of 20 October 2026. The split between men and women is our estimate, explained in our slots post. IRONMAN sets the real split from the number of starters, and we used finishers instead.
• IRONMAN Maryland is left out. IRONMAN removed part of the bike from every athlete's time there after a medical emergency, so its times are not comparable. We found no reports of shortened or adjusted courses at the other eight races.
• We did not model roll-down. When a winner or pool athlete declines a slot, it passes on, so the real last time can be a little slower than ours.
• As a check, our last men's time at Gurye matches the last qualifier flagged on CoachCox for that race. IRONMAN Calella-Barcelona, Portugal-Cascais, California and Australia are left out for now. We'll add them once their 2026 results are in our database.