While some athletes are better prepared than others I firmly believe conditions contribute to what I personally consider to be an unacceptably high rate of deaths in the swim segments of triathlons.

I disagree the organizers need to be responsible for the conditions of the race course. If there was a dangerous pothole on the bike course I would hope organizers would either fix it or reroute athletes.

If dangerous water conditions and lack of safety personnel will lead to swimmers dying then there should have been at least one death at IM STG in 2012. Why weren't there any? Well think about this: IMSTG had a reputation of being HARD. So much so that numbers were down and probably the majority of entrants were experienced. Condolences to friends and family of those that died; hopefully while pursuing their passion!

Ironman should require people to qualify before they can register. And they love money, so it is crazy that they aren't doing it even just to make more profit. Put on "qualifier" swims and charge $150. If you can't register for an ironman until you have either done a half under a certain time in the previous 3 years, or you can swim 4,225 yds under a certain time, verified by an official. Make them their own super-cool events even. Look at the statistics and don't allow people to register until they can do the swim under X minutes.

And I don't think triathlon has a swimming problem. Swimming has a triathlon problem. Swims as long as Ironman swims usually require people prove they can do it before they are allowed to register. But because Ironman allows people to try to swim 2.4 miles without any proof they could possibly make it, just because it's a part of a triathlon, they somehow get a free pass of saying it's not their problem.

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But where do you draw the line at what is and what isn't acceptable conditions. I watched the drone footage from IMWA and there were 2 female Singaporean swimmers, lying on their backs sculling, intermittently grabbing onto the paddleboarders for a rest, 200m in. I doubt they made the cutoff, but they attracted way too many safety crew because of their poor swimming ability, reducing the capability of the water safety, if there had been a genuine emergency they would have been hamstrung. There have been way too many swims cancelled because a large portion of the swimmers are not much better than these guys, weak swimmers, poorly prepared, never swam in the ocean, little understanding of the ocean, such as rips, waves, currents etc Ironman/triathlon panders to the lowest common denominator. Cancel the swim if it is unsafe for a fit, strong, competent swimmer, you don't cancel the swim because someone who is intending to scull on their backs is going to struggle. They could always let everyone start and anyone that can't make a 300m marker in a certain time gets pulled out or anyone that looks like they're battling gets told to turn around. Perhaps if the swim was in a lake or river where conditions are ideal 99% of the time and race day conditions are crap, then yeah maybe look at cancelling the swim because competitors would be expecting great conditions and perhaps wouldn't be prepared. But in the ocean, anything can happen.

Personal responsibility for one's safety is essential in all elements of Ironman.

Yet, having paid so much money to participate, the weight of expectations etc can lead to bad judgement. Ironman could do more than wave starts and unnecessary swim cancellations.

1. Create a "finishers wave." This is the last wave. Allow people to tow floating buoys with them. Keep more resources near this group. The only caveat is that they cannot qualify for Kona. I'm sure no one in this group would mind.

2. Create a "duathlon group." If swim conditions reach a certain difficulty, at the discretion of the RD, the race could be declared an optional duathlon for athletes who don't feel safe doing the swim. They start the bike after the swim cut-off and obviously can't KQ. But at least they can go out an ride and run, rather than deciding whether to sit out the entire race they have (sort of) prepared for or take a chance that "everything will be alright."

Finally, it is important to note the SIPEs etc is actually more likely in experienced athletes than competent, but slow swimmers. Life doesn't come with guarantees and there will always be tragedies at any mass participation event where you have so many people. It's just a numbers game too.

Unfortunately, even these swim 'qualifiers' won't protect against many/most of the swim deaths.

People flat out underestimate ocean swimming.

Even though I've done many triathlons with ocean swims, after about 12 minutes I get this weird primal fear like I just fell off a boat miles from shore and need to immediately dogie paddle back to shore :)

When it happens its not funny, but even after years, this still happens to me. Never ever ever ever happens to me in a lake swim.

Perhaps "strong" is not the right word but I believe that a well conditioned swimmer (swims 20,000 yd/m per wk or more) is considerably less likely to have a cardiac event than your average swimmer (swims 5,000 yd/m per wk or less).

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I didn't think the water conditions were bad at Cleveland. I swam shortly before the accident.

Heart attacks are like heat stroke from what I can see. You can be the most in shape person and have a heat stroke even though you are hydrating. We see people whom look in shape have heart attacks every day.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Neither did I and I was in the latter waves and I am a crap-poor swimmer. I'd done New England ocean swims that were more challenging that the the Nats swim.

I agree. In fact, talking to some friends in my Masters swim club, they already think that you have to qualify for a full. I'm of the opinion that anybody who signs up for a full, or even a half before doing anything else is asking for a bit of trouble. There are always "bucket listers", and I'm wondering how many of these deaths are part of that demographic.

This doesn't make any sense. The only circumstance that would make this approach logical is a ridiculous hypothetical where one casualty is acceptable but two is not.

Race organisers should be continuously monitoring conditions regardless. If some swimmers are getting in trouble due to excessively difficult conditions, then the difficult conditions may be a reason to cancel the swim, not the fact that someone had difficulties. What if it their difficulty is unrelated to the conditions and simply a matter of insufficient training, or heart issue, etc....
Risk is not dictated by whether someone else had a problem. Risk does not increase because someone else had a problem, unless that problem changes the circumstances (e.g. reduced safety personnel or increased traffic). However, that event may indicate an unnoticed risk (lets say serious jelly fish stings, shark attack, water contamination) in which case the swim might be cancelled when that comes to light because the new risk is taken into account, not simply because someone was already hurt.

Fixed x2

OK, let me put it as plainly as possible: the probability of a well conditioned swimmer having a heart attack is lower than that of an average swimmer. Sure, it is possible for an extremely well conditioned swimmer to have a heart attack, but his/her risk is much slower than the average swimmer. This all goes back to aerobic conditioning: the person who exercises regularly and maintains a proper weight is less likely to have a heart attack than an obese person who does not exercise.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

That's like saying Bless your heart...let me be frank.

In triathlon, if you take a cross-section of those whom have cardiac events. You're not seeing the out of shape and obese people have cardiac events. You're seeing Older athletes whom are well trained and experienced triathletes have the cardiac events in the water. In triathlon, for the most part you're already in a different subset of the population. So your risk of heart disease is already low and you're seeing outliers that have other issues and being in shape won't help them.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

They contribute, but so does everything else.
Your proposal that a swim should automatically stop when an athlete runs into trouble on the swim does not address this. There has to be a threshold considered acceptable for the swim. Why would an assessment that swell, wind, tides, etc were all within safe limits be suddenly thrown out once an incident occurs, unless the incident specifically shows the assessment to have been erroneous. Please note that the fact an incident occurs DOES NOT demonstrate a mistake was made in the risk assessment. There is always a risk, it cannot be eliminated only assessed and mitigated. Your approach seems to suppose it's possible to eliminate risk and that an incident reveals a flaw in the race plan.
The logical conclusion of your approach, as I understand it, is to eliminate the swim and make all triathlons into duathlons.

You're seeing Older athletes whom are well trained and experienced triathletes have the cardiac events in the water.

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I'd be curious if these are the "massive" heart attacks that pretty much will kill anyone OR if these are the "heart attacks" that if quickly dealt with will lead to person recovering and alive post recovery. IE- is the fact that it's in the water and the fact that likely safety personal aren't on top of the athletes at the moment it happens and key time is lost "spotting" the athlete more the issue than the actual heart attack.

Or better yet I'd be curious the medical time from an person having a heart attack in his office to an person having an heart attack in the water.




As I've said for years, I dont know how the hell RD's put on swims in triathlons. I would die of a heart attack just from worrying at every single race hoping it's not your race that person has that episode....And hoping to god that if they do you have the personnel to save them and not be part of that "swim death" story/stat.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

We don't have any way of knowing whether these heart attack guys are "well trained and experienced" or not. They could be guys who were fat for 20-30 yrs and then decided to all of a sudden get in shape enough to attempt an iron race. That 20-30 yrs of being fat and sitting on the couch may have already have damaged their heart, arteries, etc. I think you are giving the average bucket llster a bit too much credit. Also, the reason we don't see out of shape, obese people having cardiac arrest in iron events is b/c they don't generally enter iron races.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

You see obese people in every triathlon event. Hate to burst your bubble here. I'm happy for them getting after it.

There are several "influencer" triathlete types out there whom are obese and haven't changed the entire time in their triathlon career. Whereas many of us on ST clean up our diet and focus on getting into shape and not wanting to weigh over [blank].

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

A firm belief does not make something true. In this case, there is no proof that conditions contributed to the deaths of the swimmers. Certainly, ongoing analysis and studies should happen but there's no way to completely eliminate risk.

First, the link - https://www.triathlete.com/...group-hardest_306309

Many of you have probably already seen this, but people have been posting thoughts and ideas, and guessing at outcomes. This study at least provides hard numbers. [The bold was added by me]
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There are hospitals all over the country who can provide a fairly easy and inexpensive heart checkup. My local hospital calls it a "Healthy Heart" checkup, and it costs an entire $100 and no insurance is required/used. They do some preliminary lab work tests, an EKG, then roll you into an MRI using contrast. They called me less than two hours later to review my findings, explain the process, and answer questions. A couple days later I got an envelope with pictures of the MRI (which I couldn't make out shit, but they could) and a Calcium score. Still doesn't mean I won't die tomorrow on a workout, but at least I know I'm not a ticking time bomb!

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I'm closer to the feathered end of the spear than the point.

This may sound dumb or ill informed, but is it a possibility that in Tri you don't see the death rate in the bike or the run because the person already died in the swim? That it wouldn't matter whether the run came first or if it was a heart revving cyclocross race?

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...riathlon_P6427784-2/