I don't know anything about this event, and I'm not trolling at all, but why were medical services not already on site for this event? It looks like a smaller event, but I ran a 10K this past Saturday with a field of just over 300 people & there was an ambulance parked at the start/finish. I'm making an assumption based on the article saying that emergency crews had to be dispatched to the scene, but I can't see how the RD wouldn't arrange to at least have paramedics already on site.

This is the largest and oldest sprint in Florida and I have raced it the past 3 years and I can assure you the RD had at least 2 EMS vehicles on site. The venue is a large 1100 acre park so to get from the paved parking area out to the beach would have taken 1-2 minutes tops. Unfortunately its sad but the EMS response was top notch.

Prayers to his family and friends.

Thanks for the info. Sometimes you can infer the wrong thing from an article. I wasn't trying to imply that there was any negligence by the RD, just trying to understand why the article implied that it took so long for EMS to respond. Now it seems that those responding later were simply support units for the on-site staff.

"levity" when a fellow athlete's life ends during a race?? You're a dope.

I realize this solution doesn't scale up to larger events, but since people are using timing chips why not send people off in 30 second waves one a time for smaller events like this? I ask this as a roadie who doesn't do tri, but one of the things that keeps me away from sport of triathlon is the thought of being kicked in the face while swimming in a mass of humanity. Are people just really into the experience of all running into the water together when the horn blows? Apologies if my suggestion is naive or unhelpful here.

These occurences scare the crap out if me and sometimes make we want to quit the sport. Does anyone else feel this way? 46yo male here with 2 young children. Damn...

Prayers for the family...just awful to hear these deaths that seem to occur rather frequently.

The biggest issue to this is that you are likely going to turn off people who want to "race" their competition and not just the time. That's the only issue with an individual time trial start. You really have zero clue where you are in the race until you get to the finish. I would think if every short distance triathlon went to that format, you'd easily lose 8-12% of your customers. Could RD's survive with that lose? I don't know

I still think the best safest format is an individual time trial where athletes (2 at time at most) go off every 3-7 secs. That would really allow for better management of the athletes by the swim support staff, but it really turns it into a race against the clock and not necessarily your competitors (AG i'm talking about). Not, that that isn't bad, just that you'd lose people because they'd want to know where they were in the race against their competitors.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

+1

Three kids myself. My condolences go out to his family.

Considering the number of people competing in triathlon across the US, these incidents are still pretty rare. I've previously been involved with motorcycle roadracing - which is a far smaller niche than Tri - and their message boards often contain condolence threads. Those threads certainly turned me away from that sport pretty quickly. If swim deaths were a top thread on ST on a daily basis, it definitely would give me pause.

This thread ties in a bit with the slow swimmer thread, and the suggestions for more TT starts seem like the best solution. Spreading out the field so the race staff has a better shot of spotting problems seems like a great idea.

I would also encourage non-confident swimmers to try to target wetsuit-legal events. The extra buoyancy certainly won't hurt.

Also, is there a mechanical solution to the problem? The airbag backcountry ski pack has made the news for saving lives in avalanches, are there panic-type products on the market now that could be worn to increase swim safety? Airplane life jackets are insta-flate, but I wouldn't want to swim in an un-inflated one. That doesn't mean that there's not another way to skin that cat though....

I actually push harder in a time trial start triathlon than I do a wave start because I do not know where the rest of my age group is. In a wave start I tend to build as each segment of the race progresses.

i think it depends on the start. ironman does pretty much what you're saying. they employ a "streaming" start in certain conditions, but i think it's all course specific. they look at the swim venue they're working with and determine what kind of swim they'll use. for example, if you have a buoy people have to go around a short distance from the swim start this kind of streaming start makes a lot of sense, because you don't want people clogging up as they go around a buoy. you also have to ask yourself how easily you, as an RD, can get to a swimmer in distress.

nobody ever used to die in triathlons, during the first 10 years of the sport. but there were 2 things going on. first, the sport was a lot smaller. second, everybody was at the pointy end, athletically. i'd go to a race, and i'd look at all these people, and every single one of them looked like an underwear model. the sport has spread out, as has its adherents. i think this causes us to look at these alternate kinds of swim start motifs a bit more than we might have had to 20 or 30 years ago.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Right and that's the correct way to race, and I still think more people would choose an wave start than an TT start. But I think from a clear safety standpoint, the TT start is the way to do it.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Yes it cuts both ways. The TT start is a safer swim and there is where you can get into trouble the faster without a real way out.

just sticking this on the end here...

i did a really interesting tri a week or so ago. we walked down a dock (is that what is is? long wooden thing over water) and jumped off and swam 50m to the ship (which took us out to sea, we jumped off and started the tri). some of us swam from shore out to the ship. there were folks having trouble (we were against a GOOD current with chop) and guards on the ship jumped off to help 2 people to boat. AFAIK, those 2 did not start. Might be a good "trial by fire" idea to start a triathlon. have a starting 100-200m (or whatever) and if you finish that you get to start. Otherwise you've DNFd before you get the chance to die in the melee...

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

I think that I would aid another competitor in trouble but I have often wondered if I would even notice, at least in the first, chaotic part of the swim.

the RD and the staff of this race are the best in the Tampa bay area, trust me, I have done his races since 1995, safety is top notch, has a RD myself, I feel for him,

prayers for the family

Totally agree, Dan.

My list is one-sided, but intentionally so. I just offered up my take on what individual triathletes can (and should) do.

But as you point out, there's another side to this issue. If you're a race director, event organizer, head lifeguard, swim coordinator, safety director, sponsor, governing body, equipment manufacturer/seller, etc., you'll have your own "to-do" list. Many of the suggestions mentioned here at the thread fall into one of those lists. These lists are no less important than the one I offered for individual athletes. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that.

As athletes, we should expect that race directors do everything possible to ensure our safety. We should be vocal about our concerns in this regard.

I give credit to WTC for its SwimSmart initiative. If nothing else, it increased awareness about safety during the triathlon swim. Their Paula Newby-Fraser video about swim safety tips is excellent. I hope that WTC will report back to our triathlon community about their experiences with SwimSmart, both good and bad, so that we might all learn something.

I worry about trying to assign blame for any of these incidents. From afar, we seldom have enough information to reach just conclusions. And perhaps nobody is to blame.

About 1 in 65,000 athletes dies at a triathlon. More than 2/3 of those deaths occur during the swim. If we're going to do better, we all need to think critically and be certain that our "to-do" lists include the items that might reasonably make a difference. And then we each need to get it done.

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Larry Creswell
http://www.athletesheart.org, @athletesheart

This is very well stated, Larry. And you also, Dan.

All involved needs contribution. WTC has a done a very good job at taking a leadership role with a series of action items, unlike USAT. The National Governing Body need a much more active role than what has been taken. They can help manage this issue better than they have.

We all have a role here. I'm a swim coach to triathletes, doing my small part.

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Gerry Rodrigues
http://www.tower26.com
twitter: @tower_26
FB: Tower 26

Dan, what would you like to see done? If I remember correctly, a proper swim warm up area and/or time before the race? What else if you don't mind listing them, or direct the thread to where this info can be listed. I seem to recall you writing up an article on this issue a year or 2 ago maybe?!?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I would not aid another swimmer in trouble. I am not a lifeguard and a swimmer in trouble would more likely than not take me down too. Best thing for me to do would be to swim away from someone in trouble, stop and start trying to draw attention to myself and the other person.

Brooks, I think this is the article you're talking about. It's what I thought of reading Dan't posts too:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Opinion/Limiting_Deaths_in_Triathlon_2986.html

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____________________________________________
Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science

The one thing I question is how would a RD/race direct people not to put on their wetsuit all the way up? Would a statement in race packet suffice, morning announcement, do they need a volunteer to now walk the grounds?

I guess I see that more on the athlete themselves not the RD. Or I guess I'm wondering how far that should be taken. Is an announent not to wear the wetsuit suffice? When can it simple be on the athlete responsibility?

I'm asking because it would seem you would need to go to some length to actually mandate the idea/suggestion (I can't call it a rule because you would then have to be punished for not following it). I guess I don't see how a race enforces the no wetsuit top until just before the start. I see people all the time wearing them well before they start, some at transition, some near water, etc.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

i don't think it's a binary choice, either the RD or the athlete takes responsibility for a particular job. athletes, USAT officials, coaches, RDs, magazines, if we all can agree on a list of things that make sense, why do those things need to be the job of only one voice? ride to the right, pass to the left. i can't imagine any among the group i just listed NOT taking it as his responsibility to remind those, if we have constituencies, to ride on the right and pass on the left.

likewise, if there is a common narrative, for athletes, and for RDs, that describe how to put on safer races and how to be safer once you're in a race, i think we all ought to shout it.

in general, i treat the swim like i treat every other part of my life, when risk is involved. keep myself out of trouble. figure out what trouble might lie ahead and take steps to inoculate myself from it. but educate and prepare myself for trouble and know what it looks like. if trouble finds me don't panic. calmly assess. put my trouble is a box, measure the size of the box, so that i can see exactly how big is the trouble i'm in (more likely, how small it is). take incremental steps, chip away, until i'm out of the trouble.

that might sound like a good recipe for solving a lot of problems, but not a crisis in the water. but the first part of this approach is how i handle swims. the whole morning i'm trying to stay alert and active but still calm. i'm going about my business, figuring out how much time i have until the gun goes off, the wetsuit's on and up, i'm in the water at least 20, maybe 30 minutes before the swim start, a very easy start to my warm up. i swim out, look at the shore so that i see what the swim finish looks like from the water, as i'm swimming in, so that i know where to sight. i look for the best line out, i gauge the currents, to see if i need to start to one side or the other to allow for the current, and to see if i have to swim kind of at an angle (this is more of an ocean issue). i decide if i'm going to start on the left or the right and i almost never start in the middle of a group of swimmers. i acknowledge that everyone starts the swim way too fast, so i want to make sure i'm not going to get swarmed by people who're going to finish way behind me out of the water but will sprint the first 100 yards faster than i intend to go.

stuff like that. i fix the problems before i get into the problems. i don't see why this is not a joint responsibility. you have experts like gerry rodrigues posting here, no better tactical rough water swimmer ever lived, larry creswell, as knowledgeable as any physician on cardiac death in sports, i think we have a great aggregation of knowledge but the hard part is getting everybody on the starting line to hear the message. the single most obvious person to at least finally deliver the message would be the race announcer. probably the best in this regard, that i've ever heard, is eric gilsenen. he's super smart, articulate, knows the game. and he's calm. he doesn't hype everyone up, as if his day job is announcing supercross. upbeat but calm is what is needed in a triathlon on race morning, in my opinion. if i were putting on a race i'd pay what i need to hire him and he and i would go over the narrative pre-race so that each athlete hears our safety "PSA".

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Ah I guess I was more asking because of an earlier comment. You said you could name just as many RD's as being cavalier as you could athletes. Therefore, when I read your article, I was trying to determine what would suffice you from noting that an RD did his due diligence for swim safety. It seems just general awareness would suffice, from your last comment, and geared more toward a general warning among all industry participants (RD, coach, athlete, manufacturer, etc).

I agree with your sentiment, just wondered aloud because of your cavalier comment towards RD's. I took that pretty strongly as saying they aren't doing enough, and wanted to understand how far they should take it. Getting called cavalier is a pretty big deal when your talking about athlete safety, I didn't take lightly what you said about you can show a bunch of RD's acting that way (ETA: I will never be an RD nor want to be one but being a coach in this industry, that's a warning I take seriously).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

when i say cavalier i don't mean they drive their athletes into head on collisions. i mean a lot of them treat safety like a lot of their own athletes treat the rules of competition: they go through the motions, they do the obvious stuff, but they don't really make a study of the subject matter. this is not all RDs. it's just that RDs are like doctors, lawyers, policemen, politicians, coaches and online magazine publishers: you have really good ones, barely adequate ones, pretty poor ones, and everywhere in between.

the RD has something nobody else has: full access to everybody doing his race. i have partial access, that is, i can talk to all the slowtwitchers doing his race. you can talk to everyone you coach who's doing his race. but only he can talk to everyone who's doing his race, and he can talk to them months out, weeks out, the day before and the morning of. so, what's he going to do? what's he going to say? if you had that kind of access to a group of people doing a triathlon, how would you handle it? i suspect that the really good RDs take advantage of these opportunities.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Did you send that story/assessment out to a list of RD's that you probably have on file? Get any feedback from them, you care to share?

I think being able to just announce stuff like the wetsuit top would be a great asset. I know the MC probably gives an wetsuit temp announcement 5 times in the 1-2 hours leading up to the start, that could be the perfect time to give a reminder to keep chilled, relaxed and finish putting the top of wetsuit only in the few mins before the event (or swim warm up). I don't think I've ever heard it once announced/told when/how to wear the wetsuit in particular to the later waves at any race I've been too. I also MC'd one event, and we didn't give any details on the wetsuit other than just the water temp. It was actually in early march in the mountains and so everyone knew it was a wetsuit legal race (air temp was 50, water temp i think 56).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com