Where did the athletes go?

Ironman Coeur d’Alene’s first time out in August drew significantly fewer participants than the triathlon attracted in previous years when it was held in late June.

The results show 1,346 athletes raced Sunday to complete the 140.6-mile circuit. In June 2015, 2,012 athletes took the Ironman Challenge to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles. The event drew 2,466 athletes in June 2014.

Zach Ukich, Ironman Coeur d’Alene race director, said some athletes’ uncertainty about the weather may have deterred them from participating in Sunday’s race.

“The perception is that August is a hotter month,” Ukich said. “I think people were kind of waiting to see what that brought.”

The decision to push the Coeur d’Alene event to August was made, Ukich said, because the lake’s water temperature is generally milder later in the summer. Lake Coeur d’Alene’s late-June water temperature is usually in the low 50s to 60s. By late August, the lake water is about 10 degrees warmer.

But the outdoor temperature is also usually warmer later in the summer, possibly making the cycling and running legs of the race seem more daunting in August than in June when the average high temperature is 74 degrees.

“We’re expecting next year, things will be different,” Ukich said.

When Ironman Coeur d’Alene was moved to August, a new Ironman event took its place in June: Ironman Coeur d’Alene 70.3, a half-Ironman event.

Ukich said, while more people would choose to take on the shorter Ironman event than complete a full Ironman triathlon, he doesn’t think the new June event drew participants away from the August race. Many triathletes would use a 70.3 as a warm-up to the full triathlon, he said.

There is a more likely reason Ironman Coeur d’Alene on Aug. 21 may not have appealed to as many athletes as a June event. The August race was one of the last possible stops on the road to Kona. The Ironman Championship takes place Oct. 8 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, and the final three qualifying races — Ironman Coeur d’Alene, Ironman Mont-Tremblant in Quebec and Ironman Copenhagen — all took place on the same day. Ironman Sweden took place a day earlier.

“It is closer to Kona,” Ukich said. “So the competitive athletes could have already qualified, although we did bump up our Kona slots significantly.”

This year, Ironman Coeur d’Alene offered the top 65 finishers the chance to qualify for the championship, at least 20 more than the norm.

A final reason Ironman Coeur d’Alene in August may have flagged has nothing to do with the weather or the actual race. The Canadian economy could be a factor.

Because Coeur d’Alene is less than 100 miles from the Canadian border, it generally attracts a large share of athletes from the north. But, with a weakened Canadian dollar that hit an 11-year low earlier this year, athletes from across the border may have decided to stay away.

Carla Jackman, who participated in Ironman Coeur d’Alene in June 2015, told Triathlete Magazine, “I am from Calgary, Alberta, so the USD/CDN exchange does have a bit of an impact on my decisions.”