Elevation wrote:

The ability to clear a lottery and hand over $400 should not be the only firm requirement to engage in a potentially life threatening activity.

While my previous post in this thread was not directly in response to your post, it certainly was influenced by it. While I can sincerely appreciate both your honesty and your perspective on the topic, it's hard not to point out the immense difficulty in that closing statement.

There are countless potentially life threatening activities or situations I could engage or insert myself into in a daily basis. My commute to work is a potentially life threatening situation. Every single time I head out the door for a bike ride, I'm participating in a potentially life threatening activity.

Consider the waivers that you have to 'read' and sign before registering for races, consider the 4, or was it 5 separate waivers that you had to sign at packet pickup for this race? Consider the mandatory athlete briefings, the multiple, and I stress multiple newsletters that were sent out for weeks prior to this race explaining the course and challenges. How can anyone possible argue that the risks associated with triathlon are less communicated to you than the literally countless more statistically dangerous activities that we participate on a daily basis?

Could the sport as a whole do a better job to communicate risks? Certainly, and as these deaths continue to happen I'd think it inevitable that they eventually will.

However, I will never concede on the point of personal accountability. No amount of education or warning in the world will help if people simply ignore it. Sure, some form of compulsorily medical examination might help by removing the personal choice from the matter, but how is the absurdity of that statement not self-evident? We have to force people to look out for their own well-being? Is self-preservation not the most basic and universal of all instincts?

Any death is a tragedy, and this is no different. But life is full of measured risks, and it's my responsibility to decide which ones I'm willing to take or potentially suffer the consequences.