You are risking your health by simply doing an IM. Don't race.....problem solved and welcome to the new normal.

Businesses will not be held libel for a virus they can't control or be sued out of business. It's your call.

I'm confused. You don't want to risk your health but you want to go to this race anyway?
What difference does signing this document make?

BTW, I bet the waiver already has language referring to Acts of God as well as "expressed or implied".
All this document is doing is moving something from implied to expressed.
If you are worried about your health, don't go to this race.

I totally agree with you! It's one thing to accept the risk for yourself, but then to potentially put others at risk is another side to it.

I was also not comfortable racing and traveling to Coz this year, I emailed them yesterday for a deferral and had it completed by last night. It was impressively simple.

Muncie 70.3 also sent the update COVID waivers prior to the race, then cancelled 8 days before.

Don't worry, it will come to you. So far the Mid-West has seen few cases, so it's not surprising (well, maybe a little) that you don't know anyone. I only know people who got infected in March/April. Including some young healthy people who were down for 6-12 weeks. Not hospitalized, just really fatigued and easily out of breath. Don't personally know anyone who needed to be hospitalized or who died, but know quite few people who had family members hospitalized. That's in Europe.

ICU nurse here. I've been taking care of both COVID+ and COVID- patients since March. We've had COVID+ patients that are incredibly sick, by far the sickest and most unstable patients that any of my coworkers have ever seen. We've also had patients admitted to our ICU (half of which is currently the COVID cohort, where all COVID+ patients despite their acuity go) that showed up to the ER for issues completely unrelated to COVID-19, the doctors decided they needed to be admitted, they were tested prior to admission per our hospital protocol, and ended up being COVID+...and they had no clue. For example, a patient with a limb fracture severe enough for surgery that tested COVID+ and was the definition of asymptomatic. The patient had no idea they were positive, had no known contacts, and probably wouldn't have known if they hadn't had a fluke accident that resulted in a severe fracture requiring surgery.

The question then becomes, how long has this patient been infected? Since they were asymptomatic, we have absolutely no idea. When it comes to tracking the people the patient has been in contact with, the health department will have to assume that anyone who has come in contact with the patient in the past two weeks could potentially be infected. And the people that THOSE people have come in contact with could now be infected as well. That patient's family will now have to quarantine for the next two weeks, and probably will also get tested for COVID-19 since they have a known infected contact. If they are positive, their course of infection may look very different from the patients'. And that is the scariest thing about this virus. Yes, we've seen patients with multiple comorbidities that become very ill, as expected, but we've also seen patients under 40 with no previous medical history that were previously completely healthy become very ill and require extensive critical care resources.

Don't underestimate this virus. You don't know how sick you might become if you contract it.

This is not a perceived experience. It is my experience.

That why in my original comment, I led with "It's a weird thing. My personal experience does not match what I read and hear."

Since those comments, I have been to work and/or gym each day and my experience was the same. I did not perceive it.

You can go to WTC site and start the reg for a foreign race, and see what the wavier says. Did that for Talinn. It's a pretty broad waiver to begin with, all risks incurred in traveling to and participating in the race. Paraphrased of course but the waivers are there to read. Good argument that you've already waived the risk of covid, as someone mentioned above this just expressly identifies Covid. Might argue that adding it specifically means it wasn't covered before, but that's a loser argument IMO.

As a 60-64 AG athlete with high-risk friends in their 70’s, I will be copying your response if IM St George tries to send me that addendum. No way until I am vaccinated will I risk exposing my friends and family to this risk.

Thanks for posting and fwiw, I really enjoyed the aquarium swim of IM Cozumel two years ago.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

90% of the cases I’ve defended over the years were bs. With your experience, I’m sure you know that bs cases are filed and settled every day. Elected (and, to a lesser extent appointed) judges and unknowing juries side with the bs all the time.

You missed the point entirely. That’s ok.

I would also reference this for useful pertinent info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

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_________________________________________________
When all is said and done. More is usually said than done
Ba Ba Booey

The real issue IMO is whether the pre-covid waiver covered covid. I'd argue it did having read the Talinn waiver yesterday, but I'm a defense lawyer. That's a question of pure law for the judge. I have not had the experience of corrupt judges, more typical in LA County is overworked judges with shrinking budgets. Almost all do the best they can.

If the pre covid waiver covered covid, then this new waiver is not legally relevant. At best it's a clarification of an already covered risk. Flip side is if it were covered before why waive it now? Defense attys never let the opportunity to get more waivers slip by, and this may have been a mistake on their part.

I'd bet it would be disposed on on summary adjudication, no facts are necessary. Assuming the court would find jurisdiction here, which it probably would. Would have to be a class action though, no one in their right mind would sue over $600 with no attys fees clause.

I seem to recall, I sign waivers electronically when signing up, and then signing another on site waiver. No competitor in the history of IM has ever compared the two waivers for substance.

At any rate, much ado about nothing in my view. It doesn't make much sense to me that someone was willing to put themselves at risk by traveling through at least two international airports, then add busses and ferries and cabs, and hotels, and international crowd, and an island under an Orange level warning, and was apparently willing to risk covid, but giving up the right to sue by having to sign a waiver is what now compels them to not want to? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

It's odd that the fulls are needing the waiver but the 70.3 events are not.

Looking at my account 70.3 Cozumel and Des Moines do not require additional waivers but IM Florida does.

Wow, this blew up while I was away. Let me respond to the main points that I see. If I missed any, I'm sure you'll all let me know.

1. "Do you not want to risk your health but still race?" No. I am not willing to race under current conditions because there are no safe racing conditions.

2. "What difference does signing the document make?" If I sign the document, then I am committing to assume new risks, risks that did not exist and could not have been contemplated by me when I signed up.

3. "But all races involve some risk, and you sign a waiver for them." Yes, but every competitor reviews and waives a list of those risks. Adding a risk is potentially an alteration of the deal. And COVID-19 is a very big added risk.

4. "But the waiver you already signed contemplated this risk." No, it does not, for multiple reasons, chief among which are (a) this risk did not exist when the waiver was drafted and signed; and (b) if there was a solid argument that it did, that argument is undercut by the attempt to add a new waiver.

5. "It's just one more risk, one more illness." Yes, but it's not the common cold or influenza. It's a highly contagious, as-yet not fully understood, potentially deadly disease.

6. "I bet the waiver already has language referring to Acts of God as well as 'express or implied.'" A pandemic is not an Act of God. It did not exist at the time of the waiver, so it could not have been express (because you cannot specify that which does not exist) or implied (because you cannot imply the existence of that which does not exist, even if it eventually becomes an arguable subset of a prior risk).

7. "It's not a material change to contract terms." While this is ultimately a question of law, the presence of the additional waiver and the demonstrated severity of the disease operate strongly in support of the contention that it is a material change.

8. "You sure are throwing around a lot of legal-sounding words." That's because I'm a lawyer (but I'm not your lawyer).

9. "So what the heck DO you even want?" My money back or a deferral to next year.

10. "Why are you posting this?" Maybe some other people are in my boat, have similar feelings as me, are similarly risk-averse, but are having trouble articulating why they shouldn't be forced to choose between losing their money and risking their health.

11. "You sure are a [insert crude epithet here]." Hey, I've been called worse.

12. "You're ugly too." Yeah, well, there's not a lot I can do about that.

13. "I e-mailed IM Coz and got a deferral." I seriously did not even consider doing that. *facepalm* I'll see how that shakes out.

Yes, we get it. It's your experience. We're merely suggesting you read about some other people's experiences to maybe reconsider some of your life choices. And help keep your area as free from COVID as it seems to be.

E.g. there seems to have been a perception in the past that "it's not in this area" as justification to live life as normal.

But life is *not* normal. And that logic hasn't worked out well in the long-term for some areas. Like Florida.

Public health is not intuitive. When you do it well it feels like you're doing a lot of stupid things for nothing.

Well its not a surprise at this point. They gave it a good try. Embrunman would be an ultimate self distanced race if you can get any ironman in the world to be distanced !!! So really it was "what is the risk" before the start line. Once it starts in waves of 20 athletes at a time, you're almost never near another person for the next 10-18 hrs. Probably its more about 900 athletes and supporters coming to the the Embrun area all at once doing the same thing.

As for Cozumel vs Embrun, the situation in France and Mexico are entirely two different worlds. Mexico's daily deaths 7 day average has been around 600 per day for the last few months. France barely at single digits to teens. That's just the death side the recorded infections for each are different world. Mexico its like wildfire, France is on a very slow gradual "small flame coming back from embers" scenario from what I see.

Your 1-2 are contradictory to me. If you weren't going to race anyway, the additional waiver is completely irrelevant to you. You don't have to sign if you're not going anyway.

Maybe you're just using it as leverage to get the refund/deferral you were already seeking, but that's pretty thin.

"Your 1-2 are contradictory to me. If you weren't going to race anyway, the additional waiver is completely irrelevant to you. You don't have to sign if you're not going anyway."


I was going to race. I was going to race under the conditions, and with the risks, that I signed up for. If they change the deal after we made the deal, and I don't agree to their new deal, they shouldn't get to reap the benefit of the prior bargain.






"Maybe you're just using it as leverage to get the refund/deferral you were already seeking, but that's pretty thin."


It's not thin at all, actually. As you can see by my points above, it's a very solid and fair argument. One party to the deal shouldn't get to materially change the deal after it's made, and then hold the other party to it.

Did you go back and read the prior waiver [we'll probably be able to stipulate that you didn't read the first time, so it's kinda hard to buy the "that release was the benefit of my bargain" argument']? Positive it would not cover Covid on its own? I went and read the Talinn race waiver on active, done Coz a couple times and while I did not redline them, seemed fairly standard as I recall, and the risk of getting a virus is likely covered under the language, even if "covid" isn't stated

As a lawyer you will know that not every risk has to be spelled out in an assumption of the risk/liability waiver form. So yeah, it does seem as if you are using this as leverage to get a refund. Not faulting you for it, it's creative at least, but I think objectively you'd have to admit that the existing waiver would bar you from suing if you contracted covid due to their negligence.

You'll also be aware that what you or WTC thought about the prior waiver and what it covered is not relevant here, it's an objective test based on the language of the agreement itself. It covers what it covers without regard to your or their understanding of it

You are not going to find a single race in the next five years or more that is not going to address this in one form or another

Just my take on it

But the COVID risks didn't change.

So you come off as not that concerned about actually getting the disease, but about preserving your right to sue IM if you happen to get infected.

yup

I emailed Ironman weeks ago about deferring to IM CDA next year. So far, I have gotten no response and my name is currently listed as a participant in IM St George. Please post if you get a response from Ironman, as I intend to respnd in a similar manner to you as a response to the IMSt George COVID-19 waiver.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

Let me try this again.

"The COVID risks didn't change."

The COVID risks -did not exist- when I signed up for the race. I said that twice. Where are we having a communication breakdown on this?



"So you come off as not that concerned about getting the disease, but about preserving your right to sue IM if you happen to get infected."

How am I going to get infected when I'm not racing? As I have said in my other two posts, including the one that is the genesis of this thread, I am not racing. Where are we having a communication breakdown on this?


The whole point of this thread is to point out that IMCoz is the first race where the organizers have elected not to cancel, but instead to go forward while attempting to require the competitors to assume a new risk, a risk that did not exist when competitors signed up.

The new risk they want me to bear was not part of the deal I made when I signed up. And I don't want any part of the modified deal, as conditions currently exist, because, while I was willing to risk the discomforts associated with influenza, the common cold, or even "Montezuma's Revenge," I am not willing to risk the hazards of COVID-19, a disease that did not exist when I signed up, and a disease that is a non-starter for me and thus I will not race.

So, because the deal is unilaterally altered to include terms to which I do not agree, I want either (a) out of the deal entirely, or (b) for both parties to defer performance of the deal until such time as the risk is mitigated.

I am not sure where you are getting the idea that I want to both race the race and preserve my right to sue, which I have never said, and in fact have said precisely the opposite from the very beginning. The most likely conclusion is that you have not been reading what I've written. The next most likely conclusion is that you have not understood what I have written. If that is because I have been unclear, I apologize and hope that the above, third reiteration clears things up.

We cannot so stipulate, because I read the waiver.


Not every risk has to be spelled out, but a deadly risk that was not extant at the time of contract formation is likely material.


This line of reasoning is, as stated above, significantly undercut by the fact that the COVID risk did not exist at the time of the waiver, and that IM must have considered it relevant and material given their attempt to add the second waiver. If the first waiver covered it, then why bother with the second?



Perhaps. I'm willing to defer racing until there is a vaccine or similar treatment.