SHit, another guy in my age bracket most likely having a heart attack in the swim. Same MO too, sounds like experienced athlete, top of his heap(otherwise he wouldn't have been at worlds), and not making it out of the swim. And as I recall, I think the women the day before had wetsuits, but the next day the men did not?

I'm really sorry to hear that and condolences to his family, friends and teammates.

The thread about the guy taken out on the Nice descent had some posts mentioning that there are rumors that a woman had a fatal crash as well. Yikes, if there were two fatalities in the same event that's pretty disturbing. Seems that this stuff is being kept under tight wraps...

Another man went over the cliff about 100ft and had to be helicoptered out. Not sure how he is

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http://www.TriScottsdale.org

I met the guy who found him and got help for him on my flight home. He has a broken femur but will be ok.

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

Frankly, I'm surprised there's not news of anyone plummeting down the mountainside during the descent. I was thinking how scary that was the entire time I was watching it.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

They are both from Phoenix. One of them (Troy) is with another local tri team in town. I saw him on the way out (1st steep climb). I asked if he was ok cause he was all scratched up. Told me he was cut off on a roundabout by a guy who kept going. He sees a bad accident and stopped for like 1.5hrs. Class act

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http://www.TriScottsdale.org

They're both a great example. I met Rick.

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

Condolences to his family and friends. These swim deaths hit close to home for me too as they seem to be age related. I figure if I keep doing tri s another 10 years I'm going to be, or already am, at a higher risk of having a cardiac event during the swim event. Sitting behind the keyboard I think I'm good with going that way - quick and painless. Of course the reality is that I'm going to fight tooth and nail to survive if given the chance. Still, going quietly in the swim vs being taken out on the bike by either a vehicle or another rider sounds like the better way to go (if my time is up).

For an experienced cyclist, that descent was only mildly technical. It may have looked worse on the coverage, but only a few corners required braking if one took a good line. Sadly, most of the accidents can be chalked up to a lack of skill on the part of the competitors, not a dangerous course.

Jack

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"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Elliot | Cycle2Tri.com
Sponsors: SciCon | | Every Man Jack

I joined the tri-team recently. (Hot Mess in Richmond, TX). I didn’t get to meet him before he headed to Nice, but followed the postings on our team FB page. One of our team mates set up a PayPal fundraiser to help his family with the costs. Pretty much everyone on the team has contributed as well as other athletes and acquaintances around the world. Here is the link if anyone would like to donate. https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8i6Wwrc4go

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"Nothing screams 'Poor Workmanship!' like wrinkles in the duct tape."

i've spent a lot of time on those roads, and the descents i ride in california are more technical than those descents. any of a half-dozen other in the santa monicas would result in a lot more road rash than the maritime alps. the problem - which rowtotri experienced - is when another cyclist takes you out. if folks in front of you are going slow, and you're forced to slow down, and the jackwagon behind you is riding as if he's the only guy on the mountain and he careens into you, nothing you can do about that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

mega +1

I was worried about the descent, but it was much easier than I expected. I was passing a bunch in my old man AG without even trying. However the leading riders in the 18-24 AG behind me were riding like drugged banshees. I had a few cases where two simultaneously passed me while I was passing someone else. In one case, one of the riders threaded between me and the guy I was properly passing while another darted to the outside of me... while we were going into a blind hairpin turn. Many cases of epically horrible bad bikemanship.

Condolences to family and friends.
Any information regarding whether this event occurred early in the swim? I will respectfully not speculate as to a cause.

So terribly sad to see this yet again.

I hope this can help assuage fears for most and maybe alert others to potential warning signs...

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...how-to-prevent-them/

Stay safe everyone.

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Jeffrey Sankoff, MD
TriDoc Coaching/TriDoc Podcast
Train hard, train healthy
http://www.tridocpodcast.com
http://www.tridoccoaching.com

Well, this articles premise is that most had some underlying condition that was the unknown, but this is sample bias. Do other athletes have these underlying conditions and not have heart attacks? There was a recent article on meniscus damage that discounted the damage thought to occur from running. Seems that many had the issue but since runners sought treatment for the problem, research focused on runners. This bias may occur in other medical conditions.

I have a lot of sympathy for this mans family and friends and won’t speculate on the cause, but it is highly unexpected for this to happen for a well trained triathlete.

Sampling bias is impossible to avoid in this scenario as there is no way to do any kind of good prospective study.

You are correct that well trained athletes are unlikely to have this happen to them but as this and several other unfortunate cases have shown, it is not impossible. The implication is that even well trained athletes can have unrecognized underlying predisposition to these events and often there are subtle signs that were harbingers. THAT was the most important take away of the piece; pay attention to subtle warning signs and seek screenings if they present.

Even then, not everyone will have a warning. Because of the stresses of the swim it will be impossible to reduce the risk to zero.

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Jeffrey Sankoff, MD
TriDoc Coaching/TriDoc Podcast
Train hard, train healthy
http://www.tridocpodcast.com
http://www.tridoccoaching.com

Absolutely agree. The article did mention 29% as having the underlying condition leaving 2/3 of those having no previous symptoms. I have to admit it’s been on my mind before the start of the swim in every race this year and have altered my start to gradually build up speed and keep my heart rate down. A few years ago we had a rash of deaths in the swim and there were some good efforts in discovery of potential causes as the article mentions, I’m hopeful for continued studies to give us a better idea of what’s going on in those cases where there were no advanced warnings.

The pathophysiology of an Acute Myocardial Infarction does not require symptomatic coronary artery disease. A rapid increase in blood pressure at the swim start may be responsible for a small tear in a tiny fragile cholesterol plaque resulting in a platelet thrombus (clot). Damage to even a small amount of myocardial tissue can cause an arrhythmia. Endurance athletes are at higher risk of atrial fibrillation, and I suspect other heart arrhythmias. All of these conditions are more common in Older athletes. The primary variable in successful CPR is “time to shock.” Defibrillation is treating the potentially fatal arrhythmia, not the infarction. In open water, that is problematic. My response is to ease
into the swim... even if I have warmed-up throughly. The fact is that a well-trained older adult is far less likely to die on any given day than one who is watching from the sidelines ;-)