I wonder if that is who crashed in front of my buddy who then went cartwheeling end over end due to the guy in front crashing. My buddy had to be taken to the hospital. Bunch of road rash but nothing broken and head was fine too. Craziness!

I was volunteer bike handler 1st shift. my jaw dropped when I saw him coming in. looked like he was shot in the face. didn't miss a beat though, as he handed off his bike and headed for his gear bag. he did end up going to medical out of T2 though. stud for sure. surprisingly several crash victims. two with face injuries and none acted like they were stopping. one guy told me he crashed twice!

How do you crash on that course! It flat very few turns, no debris in the road to hit.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Well, I guess we can come up with a couple reasons. :)

I heard a crash behind me when a slow rider hit the dividing median & then swerved into the peleton passing her.

Yeah, that was him. She clipped the median & I heard her reaction & swerve. Nicholas was doing a rockstar job riding at a legal distance behind that peleton all day too. Glad he had a smoking run.

That's Nic Browne from Vancouver (by way of New Zealand)
He's an incredible runner. Finished just behind Jeff Symonds in a half marathon a few months ago. Too bad to hear that he went down

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Team Every Man Jack

Getting taken down by an erratic slow moving rider from an earlier wave can happen to any of us when there is rolling starts. A close friend of mine was out all year due to a similar accident. Nic crushed the race with 9:28 despite getting crashed out and loosing a lot of blood. Huge respect

I wish I knew. Six hours in the ER, a fractured elbow, messed up wrist and and I have no clue what happened. All I remember is sliding on concrete. A lady broke her collarbone at the same bumpy frontage road at mile 14 1/4. About every fifth rider lost a bottle, co2 or other stiff on that stretch. Crazy thing no ambulance came for the lady or myself. None of the bike support, cops, or race officials would give rides due to policy. After everyone was past and the sixth race vehicle told me they called it in during the hour I was ther, I just started walking. Made it three miles with no remaining bikers on the course and no sag vehicle. Thankfully a security guard from Exxon gave me a ride. Long day but could have been much worse - I’m strong at the Goose having a beer and food as I wait for my wife to finish - could be worse.

saw him cruising on the run. girl with him was pleading for him to slow down a bit, Haha. Apparently his pace was 1 minute faster or mile than anyone he was trying to catch or beat. All with half his face covered in band aids and blood everywhere.

Did he get in Starky’s way? 😂😂

Great guy I run with him regularly in Vancouver. His wife sent me a text and he looked pretty beat up - impressed he finished!

I just talked to my buddy who did the race. He said there were huge packs on the bike. Mix flat course, 2500 plus participants, aero bars, tired- competitive athlete you get crashes. He claimed it was so bad, up to a hundred riders had to seek medical attention. I know one lady personal who was in a crash today and broke her clavicle.

I wonder if anyone has video of the packs?

That was kinda of my point, SOME of these wreaks are due to the packs NOT all. I am not saying Brown's crash was due to packs, but if people would ride legal and get out of the packs there should be less wreaks. Then again I was not there and did not race it, but seem to be seeing a lot of videos showing massive packs, looks way worse then Kona. From the looks of videos and testimonies of athletes seems like many simple did not care about the drafting and is was not even 1-2 bike length drafting it was wheel to wheel drafting. Add into that that a lot of riders are doing a lot of there riding more on trainers then on the road your going to get crashes. Once again I am playing arm chair QB and was not there racing, but I don't think I want to race IMTX next year, pretty bummed out about that.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

wait for it...
at 42:32 here - https://d.pr/WOeGzw

I was at the back of one of those packs, trying to stay as legal as possible with Browne. The pack behind us must have had 100 riders in it. The guys in the peleton in front of us were drafting so bad, that most of them had sat up, & were having casual conversations like it was a Weeknight World Championship group ride.

I want this as my signature

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I see your point, about getting out of packs, & I agree with it. What I saw happen is the peletons get bigger & bigger as people started to realize there were no course marshals. I am not justifying this behavior but to your point, even 3-4 marshals present on the course would have significantly alleviated people riding in packs. This one is on Ironman for making ZERO attempt to enforce their rules.

+1. I was surprised by how blatantly people were drafting, not even attempting to maintain any semblance of legal distance.

I think if you look at that video a bit closer you will see that the first rider to fall was being passed on the right. This pack was heading southbound. I was the guy passing riders near the solid line on the northbound side and I swerved behind the lead rider to avoid the southbound riders.
It sounded terrible when it happened. About a half a mile up there was a moped tech helping a rider with a wheel issue and I yelled at him that there were riders down.
Lots of support on the course but zero marshals. I felt bad for those involved but I think it’s also pretty plain to see it was a draft fest.

Crazy. Watched the linked video. The packs are huge.
Skip to 9:30-9:50 - the group coming towards the camera.
20:51 - group going away from camera.
1 hour - group 6 wide.

“Weeknight World Championship Group Ride”...Haha!!! Lmao!!!

Pretty pathetic sportsmanship and hazardous. On weeknight hammerfest group rides I always stay out of the drops unless I’m leading. This is for safety and respect for everyone. Sad and dangerous that people are doing this so much at IM races.

I blame Zwift and Trainerroad

My son who was watching the race asked me later if IM had changed the drafting rules. Even he noticed the huge peletons on Hardy. I've done 18 IM races this was the worst as far as drafting. I did not see a single marshall on the Hardy.