i don't know if this is accurate. WIKI no longer says this.

Yeah I looked and didn't see it, but noticed on the right under personal information it says Died17 August 2020

Shows up as died 17 Aug 2020 on my UK link to Wiki, as of 7.45pm UK time (GMT+1) Tuesday 18th Aug.

It is accurate. Talked to a friend that lives by her. I just looked it up before this post. So in the last 1+ hrs someone changed it.

A number of posts on Facebook about her.

Sad and too young at 51.

I know she had the drug bust for doping (EPO) after her win at the 2004 IRONMAN World Championships. Not condoning what she did in ANY way, but she did confess to it right away - none of this deny, deny and deny, and even more with some weird, crazy and strange story that we are supposed to believe (It was the toothpaste, steak, supplement, the sex with my boyfriend . . . ) - that probably 90% of dopers do. All I'm saying here, is it's rare and refreshing when a doper, just admits to their wrong doing.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Very sad to see regardless of your views on her doping. Life is short, life is precious. May be too soon and be deemed as insensitive, but any knowledge of what happened here. I am always curious of both the mental health of athletes like this who competes at a very high level and then went back to being a more ordinary person but also the health consequences of doping.

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No idea what happened for sure. This is ST, I thought someone would have had this info a week before it happens...yeah, sad. I don't know. Another friend of mine who also lives there is really close to her, has dinner, rides, etc. I haven't been able to reach him to express my sympathies. According to him, she was a very nice person & just made a bad choice(s). I never met her before to the best of my knowledge, no insight at this point to exactly led to this.

Well this is sad. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few times at various events after her suspension. She was always very kind and patient with an age grouper excited to meet her! I hope there are some details about what happened to her. A loss for the community for sure.
John

That is sad news indeed. I only met her a couple times, she seemed very nice and affable. As I recall, the whole doping thing may have been a coach/boyfriend pushing her that direction? It seemed she was not very sophisticated, as the drugs that were in her system at testing time are the ones that folks come off of well before any event.

At any rate, condolences to close family and friends. And like Thomas, I will be interested in the details of her passing...

Sadly, self inflicted.....

I met her several times in St. Croix in her "post doping" days. She owned her sin of the past and had moved on to "mere mortal status" in the 201x years and seemed to just being enjoying the sport and being out there with athletes. By then most did not even know who she was anyway, so just a fast athletes in the back of the pro pack mixed in with some fast age group men. She really seemed to enjoy those races for the sake of racing, not trying to win Kona or anything like that.

I hope this was not death by suicide. I think part of the reason many of us take on these crazy sports is that we have some part of our wiring that is different from normal people (for better or worse). RIP Nina...it was fun meeting you in St. Croix....swim, bike and run where you are until we join you for that when our turn comes.

Unfortunately I believe it was. Again, I don't want to seem insensitive but I have known quite a few athletes at a high-level and there is something different about the way they/we are wired. Obviously won't go into personal detail, but yes, I worry about a few of them, and especially now in this pandemic where some seem to suffer extra. I want to encourage anyone that is reading this in need to please reach out for help if you need it. You can always feel comfortable messaging me too. RIP Nina. I know she did a race down here at least couple of years ago. Always great to see former professional athletes still out there competing.

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/...er-retir_a_22035114/

https://www.bbc.com/sport/42871491

I've been meaning to watch the HBO documentary The Weight Of Gold, too

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

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It is very sad to read about Nina and I feel for her in so many ways.

In the 27 years that I have been involved in the Ultra-triathlon community I have lost track of the number of athletes who have or are suffering from mental health issues,myself included.The pain and suffering of extreme training is easier to tolerate than the pain of what goes on between the ears and it gives a person a sense of purpose in life when a lack of purpose can be what drives people into a fatal downward spiral.I have seen it to a lesser extent in the Ironman community as well.

I have been very public about my own struggles and through my experiences I have been able to help people who have suffered deal with it all a little better and also have helped the families of those left behind understand, to a very small extent,the altered mindset that leads a person to make that final decision. I am 56 years old and if I make it to 60 I will be very surprised. It is my normal. It is just a matter of time and I am at peace with it.

Stay strong Nick

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Thanks mate,I have a few more things I want to see and do before I am done... I remember talking to Nina's brother Florian at Ultraman Canada 2008 about Nina and her drug bust.It seemed like such a difficult and sad time for all of those close to her.

Here is a painfully open and somewhat prophetic article written about Nina's dramatic and brutal fall from grace.I don't think she ever recovered from it. RIP Nina..

http://www.trihistory.com/features/after-fall#/0

This is an obvious cry for help. Go get help.

I've posted this before but here goes: jumping from the golden gate bridge is statistically more fatal than a self inflicted gunshot. And yet a few people survive. The people who survive have extremely valuable data: those final 3 seconds where they are certain they've killed themselves. When asked about their experience the survivors all have one thing in common: they realized in those 3 seconds that the problems that seemed so insurmountable were actually nothing and they truly regretted their decision to jump. Suicide offers no peace. Nina most assuredly regretted what she did and her final few moments were the worst in her life. To say otherwise romanticizes what she did and is plainly untrue.

.
I am well aware of Kevin Hines and his story and he describes it perfectly .It is an altered mind state and something that people who have not experienced it can't understand.If you had read all the blogs I have written you might have a different view as I have had this thing for 20 years.I have stopped asking for help because at the end of the day it becomes white noise.
The last thing I am going to do is argue with some random dude on a forum about my life.

It makes me incredibly sad to read this. Wishing you the best moving forward. If you ever get in a difficult spot please don't hesitate to reach out.

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I wish I knew something useful to say. Just know I am sincere when I say I wish you the best and I deeply hope you can find enough beauty to want to hang around.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

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It is good to talk about these things openly but let us shift our thoughts back to Nina and her family at this time.. Thank you for your thoughts..Cheers.

Nick,

Reach out mate!

I agree with your point about the top level, and I mean the very top-level athletes - they did NOT reach that Olympic Gold Medal, or IRONMAN Word Championship win, or World Record by being, "normal".

And then there is the step-away from sport - that is often REALLY hard for these people.

There is a tendency for the media and others to normalize whatever these top level athletes have done, and that is wrong.

It's worth noting now that most National Olympic Organizations will have Transitional Services available to athletes as they step away from sport. Ditto for the major Pro Sports Leagues - to help athletes make that transition from Top-Level Athlete, to being a contributing member of society.

Us normal folk, think because of the massive success that all these athletes have had . . . they can handle anything . . . but often they can't!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Who is arguing? Good luck.

If you ever need to talk PM me. I've had 3 suicides on my mother's side of the family. My wife of 15 years who suffers from mental health and serious physical issues (heart failure) just left me (cheated and left) a little over a month ago. I've lived in a foreign country for 20 years and have no family within thousands of miles. I cannot visit them because the border is closed to non essential travel. If anyone has a reason to be low right now it is me, but I realize someone else always has it worse and I'm not going out a quitter like my other family members did. Fuck no! I will not make my family endure more pain and trauma. No way. Obviously, I don't know your situation, but we're all going through something right? Keep your head up, be strong and talk to someone if you need it. We do care ❤

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Hi Steve,
I have spent a lot of time with "the other Steve" in Penticton and he and Jean have always been such a rock for me (and others) over the tough years. As you know the sport at the sharp end of the field is a very small and sometime incestuous community which can be a lonely place to try and carve out a career.Living in Dave Bullocks "house of Iron" for so many summers gave me a rare opportunity to spend time with some of the best the sport has seen from the mid 90's through to Ironman's move out of Penticton and it wasn't all sunshine and roses for these people.
We know the concern some have for the welfare of Chuckie V and Tom Price,both Ironman Canada winners of whom have had a tough time away from the spotlight in a life after triathlon but one of the most difficult moments I had was sitting in our living room with Peter Reid in May 1999. We had just raced Ironman Oz which he had won and he was in town to be the celebrity athlete at the local duathlon in Penticton.At the awards ceremony I could tell he wasn't doing well and said we should go home so we walked back home and talked about everything from Lori to my Ultraman later that summer to the terrible abuse he got from the Aussie spectators in Forster earlier that month.Lori was in Toronto doing some media stuff and Peter just looked lost.It was so sad to see and I could never watch him race again without thinking about that day.

I started taking an antidepressant about nine months ago, after a long period of a really negative mindset that was worse than my usual moodiness. At 50, I wasn't exactly suicidal, but death seemed like the only way to solve some problems, and I was indifferent to whether I lived or died. As others have said above, a lot of athletes are prone to this darkness because we're wired differently. The recent HBO "Weight of Gold" documentary about Olympic athletes is especially good.

I regret waiting until middle age to start medication. I always had the fear that I would not be myself and that I would feel numb; that I would lose my interest in exercise or sex; that I would gain weight or get slow; and especially that if I lost the moodiness, I would lose my drive to compete and win. None of that happened. My weight is exactly the same. My speed and endurance are better because my better mood makes for better workouts: I've run PR's in the marathon and half since I started the meds. Sex is much better. I don't feel like a different person -- I just stay the person I've always been when I wasn't having a depressive episode. The highs remain, but the lows aren't remotely as low.

I've had some surprising positive side-effects -- the frequency of my migraines has been cut by about 75%, without any other medication. A chronic nerve-pain problem has improved dramatically, and I've discontinued the other medication I was taking for it. Migraines and nerve pain are both common off-label uses of Cymbalta (duloxetine), as it turns out. I had no idea at all going in, but my three chronic conditions -- depression, migraines, and chronic pain -- were all greatly improved by one pill. YMMV, but it's been something close to a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

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<The Dew Abides>

I had someone I knew very well that was incredibly depressed and was was also bi-polar. They wanted to go off their meds so badly and they really did not want to take them and didn't take them many times for periods of time. However every time they tried to do so they just spiraled out of control. Some people will never get it, I didn't get it until I knew this person, but some people need medication 100%. It just is that way. Nothing wrong with it. It doesn't make one any less of a person even though they often think it does just that.

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I worry most about CTE - I've had seven medically diagnosed and confirmed concussions [and who knows how many others that weren't], so I know what it's like to have a feeling that you're just a little out of step with your own self but not being able to properly put it into words that someone else might understand

I am more cognizant of how long it takes me to remember things that I used to know at the drop of a hat or struggling with "what's that other word for ... oh, yeah ... 'verbalize'" that's what I was looking for just then

I'm also more attuned [got it!] to my mood swings, which I've always had, but sometimes get WAY out of proportion for the situation

Then there's random anxiety; which this COVID thing ain't helping much

Running/exercise keeps my endorphins/serotonin where they should be, with a little extra Vitamin D [from both sunshine and gummies] and therapy for added reinforcement

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Why so many concussions?

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Going through life, head-first!!!

Also, no good helmets when I was a kid riding bikes & skateboards, so we just didn't wear them

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Considering I have been in your position for what seemed like forever but was luckily only 10 years, don’t give up. I took a few different Antidepressents that didn’t help. I found god, which helped for a bit, found an amazing gf and that didn’t help, nothing seemed to last. Triathlon was the thing that made the biggest difference but that too went away once I got desensitized. Felt like I was hopeless. It wasn’t until I went on a medication that wasn’t meant for Depression but that was a slim side potential that my whole life turned a corner. I finally did things for myself and found things that didn’t just distract me but fulfilled me..to an extent. I still do triathlon but I have my identity in so many things now that if something goes wrong, I have many things to fall back on.
I can safely say I haven’t had suicidal thoughts in years and am finally happy. Again I understand this means nothing but I hope you continue to find new things that feed your sole. You honestly have nothing to lose.

I worry most about CTE - I've had seven medically diagnosed and confirmed concussions [and who knows how many others that weren't], so I know what it's like to have a feeling that you're just a little out of step with your own self but not being able to properly put it into words that someone else might understand

I am more cognizant of how long it takes me to remember things that I used to know at the drop of a hat or struggling with "what's that other word for ... oh, yeah ... 'verbalize'" that's what I was looking for just then

I'm also more attuned [got it!] to my mood swings, which I've always had, but sometimes get WAY out of proportion for the situation

Then there's random anxiety; which this COVID thing ain't helping much

Running/exercise keeps my endorphins/serotonin where they should be, with a little extra Vitamin D [from both sunshine and gummies] and therapy for added reinforcement

____________

this is me to a T. Rugby 3 concussions. Partying a few more in my stupid youth. In winter I am really out of step. Last 3 winters we went to HAwaii and that really helped me tune up for winter 2021 should be interesting.

January I started for first time in my life some counselling. It has really helped me understand and tune into myself. 6 months later I went from monthly to "you know what, lets do tune ups quarterly" as I can intellectualize a lot better thoughts, feelings, outputs, inputs....its been good. As a friend said to me, "welcome to the first day of the rest of your life" when it came to that first anxious day going into a room and talking shit out.

I also find so many more friends now sharing together. Especially during COVID. so many people I didn't know seeing a therapist or medicating etc. and its liberating to talk to each other.

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@rhyspencer

That's great. From what my doc said, people often have to try several different medications before finding the one that works. A general practitioner won't necessarily have the expertise, so it can be a good idea to work with a specialist.

And I can relate to things that should help, or that helped for a while, then stopped helping. In fact, that was what prompted me to see a doctor -- it's worrisome to have a solid faith, a great wife, a good job, lots of exercise and interests, and to still feel indifferent to life.

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<The Dew Abides>

I didn't hurt that my therapist is a woman; that was my choice. I feel more at ease opening up to women for some reason?

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I'm sorry but it would be refreshing when someone drops out of a race the night before the race or in the middle of the race and when asked why, the athlete says "I'm sorry, I couldn't do this, I'm cheating, I took EPO..." Otherwise, they feel sorry and apologize BECAUSE they were caught.

Umm... this would never happen. I’m sure there are people who have dropped out before a race or mid race due to guilt but it would take a strong moral compass to turn yourself in as a doper without being caught and the kind of person who would do that is the unlikely to be the same person who cheats in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, that would be refreshing but a doper with a high moral compass is a bit of a paradox.

Don’t get me wrong, that would be refreshing but a doper with a high moral compass is a bit of a paradox.


FWIW - In terms of her actions, what she said afterwards, and at the risk of reading too much into it all, this terrible and sad outcome, Nina, it would seem, did have higher morals that most dopers!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Very much agree. That's more of less why I say that confessing before a race as the threshold for "refreshing" takes away the fact that she still did something that no one else does. Also I should note that moral compass is dynamic and just because she had a lapse in judgement in one point of her life that doesn't mean its the way she conducted the rest of it. It's very sad to see a life lost and especially knowing it was probably pretty lonely many people judging her life by her worst mistake.

They should just be fined for doping results, not disqualified and banned. I suspect most of the time doping does nothing for an advantage. And when it does, it's marginal. Fine them and move on. It's only a recreational sport. Commercialization has made far too big a deal out of it.

I totally disagree. DQ/ban is fair and appropriate. This behavior is not in the spirit of the sport and all efforts should be made to stop it.
Sport is sport, but this is professional AND recreational.

And I do realize there is a toll taken when one is found guilty. Risks and benefits...we all have them...we all weigh what we want to do and how to live our lives. Commercialization has little to do with it.

And doping does nothing for an advantage-OMG, how naive a statement is that!

I would agree with you if....

they did not engage in discriminatory practices. TUE's, promote discrimination. In competitive sports, we want people to be their natural selves - which means no banned substances whatsoever. If any athlete is allowed a TUE, all athletes should be entitled to that TUE. But they are not...

Therefore, since discrimination is allowed, I am for winning...not matter how its done. The 2016 Olympics was a surprise to me, to find out we had tennis players on all kinds of steroids and drugs for some fantasy condition called attention deficit disorder. I am not meaning to call out tennis players in particular but, they are also considered athletes. And I simply don't believe in allowing some athletes to have an advantage. Hence my position. You play, you should play just like you fight... to win.

Fantasy condition?

What I think Neal means is the script was written under the illusion of a medical condition. The athlete may or may not have had ADD.

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You imply therewith:
-Either all of the people with a TUE do not really need that medication.
-Or if they need the medication they should not be allowed to do sports competitively.

The first possibke implication is just untrue to my point of view.
The second possibke implication might be your opinion but not mine.

I often wondered if doping should just be ignored, but then I think back at the East German state sponsored doping and the willingness to sacrifice athletes at any cost. The problem with doping is its an ever increasing spiral, look at the lengths people and programs have gone to to be the best at doping. Doping isn’t like alcoholism, it is something an individual can just stop. So I’ve gone 180 on my initial opinion and believe in strong penalties for both the individual, coach, and program. No pretending or turning a blind eye.

Wow - both pro-doping and you deny that ADHD exists.

Do you race in a Qanon kit and believe Bill Gates created the coronavirus?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I've treated severely depressed people for most of my adult life. Didn't truly understand how it feels until I had a profound period of depression myself. Since then sort of dysthymic much of the time. No animus to whoever is encouraging whomever to get help and not discouraging anyone to get help either. Just not something one can explain.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Back to Nina....she overcame the challenges of everyone publicly hating her to get back to racing triathlon, which is something she did as an outlet of exercise after retiring from being an elite swimmer in Germany in her youth and becoming a "working adult". She had the engine and went from "fun triathlon" to winning everything really quickly to contending for Kona.

When she first got into triathlon, it was without the pressure of swimming. Michael Phelps has talked about it openly now. Then suddenly she was winning and contending for Kona and back on the exact same treadmill from her swimmer days...then busted, then back in triathlon, but wanting to succeed, but the times I met her in St. Croix she seemed at piece with also doing sport for enjoyment like the rest of us....she no longer needed to be best in the world and was to old for that.

But from the outside, those who treated her well at races, I believe she found that comforting based on my brief interactions with her. I believe those that gave her forgiveness and compassion helped her, and being able to suceed with no dope gave her personal comfort, because she probably never let go of the desire to succeed that was driven in by coaches as a teen age swimmer.

No with Covid19, and no social circle that comes with racing and training in groups, I wonder how much that drove her back into the dark zone that she spoke about when reading about Marco Pantani dying from suicide on a drug overdose?

For all of us with our social circles largely cut off, and online not replacing it, how much does our current situation hurt....these are disasters not attributed to the impact of isolation that comes with society in the last 6 months.

RIP Nina, we'll all have a chance to do some St. Croix hills or dope-less runs down Alii drive when we join you too where you are now.

A Nina Kraft story


I was riding on a bike trail in Polk County FL about 9 or 10 years ago

When a bike rider passed me

I road that section of trail 3 times a week For 6 months and had never seen another rider there

I picked up the pace and started riding next to her. She said hello, asked how I was etc.

We road together for approx 5 miles. I was having to give a good effort to stay with her. She was not breathing very hard at all

I told her my name and she replied that she was Nina Kraft I remarked I thought I had heard of her before.

She gave a very disappointed sigh and said yes I can imagine you have. I had no idea what she
Want or why she seemed so dejected when I said that


We road together for another half hour taking about nothing and everything. Very nice person. She told me her email.

I looked her up when I got home and realized why she had sighed like that. Didn’t make any nevermind to me

We emailed back and forth a few times over the next couple of years as friends about nothing in particular

What a tragedy. My prayers are with her family

Hello devashish_paul and All,

Nicely said .....

RIP Nina

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

 
I met Nina at the training center in Clermont. I was alone in a lane, she asked if we could share..no prob. She started swimming...quite well. So at a rest I said, "wow, you're pretty good". She laughed. I asked if she was pro, then I asked her name. I had no clue. I looked her up when I got home.

I ran into her twice at Florida 70.3. She recognized me and we chatted. SUPER nice lady.

It's very sad to hear her passing.

It's really sad to see dark thoughts cloud people's minds. We don't really know them, but reading their posts you say "I kind of like this guy" (the Thailand dude).

Hopefully we can give more support to those that are still around than we did (as a community) to Nina.

Six years today Nina raised her arms in victory at Ironman Louisville, becoming the oldest winner in history at 45 years and 7 months. Even a decade after Kona there were still people hating on her for her doping. My wife and I were friends with Nina and witnessed first hand how much this hurt her. We mourn her passing. We pray for her family.

Sad news: another former professional triathlete took his own life; Frenchman Jonathan Tryoen, 34 and father of two

The psychology here of hating Nina is interesting. By hating Nina we, as fans of sport, are deterring other potential dopers for if and when they get busted. We're not doing anything useful to Nina (or the doper who has been busted and paid their penalty). But I think it is a human psychoogy to shame the criminal long after they are busted and paid their penance to society and this base hurtful behaviour is pre conditioned even in the playground at a very young age (mob shaming of the other kid who did something wrong, even after the kid said sorry and owned it)...many grown ups don't grow out of that.

.
People are fickle about what justifies prolonged hatred of an individual for crimes committed.The doping thing is interesting because for some reason dopers are put at the very top of the list of people to hate long after they have paid for their actions while at the same time lauding the careers of athletes who have committed serious crimes.
.
I have always been amazed at how badly repentant dopers are treated in individual sports like cycling or tennis while society seems to turn a blind eye to celebrity athletes in team sports who have been found guilty of sexual assault,domestic violence,drug dealing/using,etc,etc,etc. That acceptance of celebrity criminals is even more bizarre when it comes to actors and musicians/singers who seem to use that image as part of their professional worth.

Different situation, but I can't help remember the 100+ pages of outright hate that "Finman" got on these forums. Sure, it's cheating, and shouldn't be condoned, but seriously? Hating for 100 pages on a BOP AGer just because they wore fins in an IM swim and then called him out to the point that it jeopardized his career?

I'm sure others will disagree with me, but that was like the smallest fish to fry in all of the inequities and injustices in triathon.

I think people hating in sports is a lot more of self-projection than policing. Sports is one of the few places where you really are supposed to 'play fair', and interestingly enough, I think fans hate even more on AGers they can relate to (hence Finman) as opposed to otherworldly pros who cheat with steroids,etc. that they can't directly relate to.