CEO of IRONMAN Group Andrew Messick presented was an update on what customers can expect over the 2021 season today on YouTube. Within the roughly five minute presentation, Messick admitted that, “many” of its races, “will be moved to later in the year.” Messick noted that Ironman Africa, Cape Epic, and Oceanside 70.3 had already been postponed from their original dates.

He addressed what many are complaining about, which is the delay in canceling a race that is already very unlikely to happen. Oceanside is a case in point. It was canceled well after its successful hosting on March 27th of this year was considered unlikely. Messick explained that, “We make those decisions only when we feel like we’ve exhausted every opportunity to safely make those races happen… We wait until we have no alternative; until we’re certain those races can’t happen.”

The comments below the Youtube article are almost entirely negative, almost all asking for a refund. Slowtwitch has a poll, just up, for its readers, and so far – very early on – it appears Slowtwitchers who are IRONMAN customers are more forgiving. In very early returns – the poll has only been up a few minutes – 20-something percent of respondents are "entirely unsatisfied" with IRONMAN’s handling of its customers' needs during the pandemic.

Almost 6 in 10 are more sanguine: either “satisfied” with IRONMAN’s management of their customers, or “not happy” but understand “we all must make the best of it.”

About a third of IRONMAN’s customers are “mostly satisfied” but think IRONMAN should give its users more advance notice of a race postponement. Below is the video posted by IRONMAN’s CEO:

Slowtwitch published an update on the race season about a month ago, in which we stated that if your instinct told you that Oceanside was unlikely to happen on the March 27 date, “your instinct may be sound.” That was our way of expressing our instinct without us getting too far over our skis. However, we also opined that St. George 70.3 was a likelier bet, and that IRONMAN in New Zealand in March was “easy to imagine.”

This is about as demonstrative as we’re likely to get, because we (as you) are limited to our own instincts, and to what we hear from people on the ground in those locations. We’ll do our best to provide an up-to-date prognostication as we feel we have a reasonably meaty status update.