Participant Stats - IM World Championships 2009

I had a look at the participant list at this year's Ford Ironman World Championships. Below are a few graphs I made in the process.

First up a pie chart showing the distribution of nationalities. Unsurprisingly, USA dominates and Germany is easily second. On a per population basis New Zealand has the greatest participation with Switzerland a close second.
Age distribution is shown below. The 40 year olds are the largest group comprising 91 individuals. Notice the spikes at the ages of 40, 50, 60 and 70. The youngest is 20 and oldest 80 (Robert Southwell from Australia - amazing!).
The 40-44 male age group is the largest with 276 athletes. Age group declines every year from 40-44 and onwards.
The picture is slightly different in the female age groups. Here the two largest age groups comprise athletes in their thirties.