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Triathlon has a swimming Problem
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Tragic loss of life during triathlon swim (again). My heart goes out to the friends and families of these athletes.

https://triathlonworld.com/...-south-africa-147669

Last year an athlete lost his life during a race I participated in USAT nationals in Ohio. The swim conditions were difficult and getting worse. Yet officials continued to send wave after wave into the water for 30 minutes after a swimmer was pulled unconscious from the water. In my local pool if a person is pulled unresponsive from the water they get everyone out of the water! It is simple water safety.

I think race organizers need to stop sending swimmers into the water if any athletes are finding the conditions too difficult. Period. Stop sending the waves, reevaluate the conditions, call off the swim.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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No we don’t. Unfortunately people die while working out, unfortunately sometimes that’s during the swim.

However I would say a good 20 percent can’t handle the conditions of any swim they’re in, so should we just get rid of the swim? Because every race would have the swim cancelled based on your recommendation.

Triathlon’s issue is people don’t want to learn to swim not that people are dying in the swim. Death is an unfortunate consequence on life and not being able to know what exerting physical exercise will do to every person.
Last edited by: Grant.Reuter: Apr 9, 19 15:18
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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Conversely, someone died on the swim at Chattanooga 70.3 the year I did it, and another guy at a small local sprint. Both times water conditions were perfect.

I'd be wary of attributing the deaths to conditions of the water as opposed to conditions of the athlete. Could as easily had an issue on the bike or run, water is less forgiving though
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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I think you mean to say triathletes have a swimming problem. But, certainly sad news.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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I think race organizers need to stop sending swimmers into the water if any athletes are finding the conditions too difficult. Period. Stop sending the waves, reevaluate the conditions, call off the swim.

-----
Slightly incorrect.

The race organizers only need to stop sending swimmers into the water if their own safety personnel find it too difficult. If you can't provide proper safety equipment, you don't have the swim. If you can provide it, it's each athlete's own responsibility to make sound judgement.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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The only reason why your local pool gets everyone out of the water is because the ones that should be watching the other swimmers are performing the rescue in an emergency situation. Thus no one would be watching the other swimmers- which is a huge no no and why they immediately get everyone out of the water.

But in events that have large enough emergency personnel who can assist with emergencies and still continue to safely monitor a race, it's not necessary to "close" the swim.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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I vehemently disagree that we need to make IM more trigger happy with swim cancellations. Athletes need to approach this sport self-responsibly. Be honest with yourself—if you are standing on the shore, and can’t handle it, then don’t swim. Maybe IM could give athletes a b/r option those days. Let the rest of us swim, and there should be fewer cancellations than there already are.

I am mystified by IMSA this past weekend. It is safe for a half swim, but not a full? Ridiculous that pros at least couldn’t do a full course.

OP should become a duathlete.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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I could see calling the swim if the competitors are minors or the safety team feels they can no longer provide their services.

If the race feels they can safely patrol the water then it is the racers’ responsibility to not go into the water. I wonder how the conditions contributed to the deaths. A lot of the swim deaths are from poor swimmers that are stressed about the swim. Tough conditions are not going to help that.

It sucks when people lose their lives participating in a hobby.

Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [Grant.Reuter] [ In reply to ]
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Grant.Reuter wrote:
No we don’t. Unfortunately people die while working out, unfortunately sometimes that’s during the swim.

However I would say a good 20 percent can’t handle the conditions of any swim they’re in, so should we just get rid of the swim? Because every race would have the swim cancelled based on your recommendation.

I think handling/discussing the issue with mortality rates during the swim and the individual ability level to swim is confounding the issue.

Perhaps we could look at it a bit more independently and for the mortality rate examine the link to hidden cardiac disease/pathology and know the swim event (for a variety of reasons) tends to exploit these problems.

I'd hate for people to think since they have above average swim fitness/ability with no anxiety they are immune to these tragic events. Could it raise the bar on an individual level, maybe, but if have an issue with your ticker, you have an issue...even at 1:10/100 pace.

You will find plenty of more than competent lifelong swimmers (a lot being males 40-60) that have had cardiac events in the water.

I think someone's medical fitness far outweighs their physical fitness when it comes to this topic and responsibility to address it are complicated to say the least.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [Poon] [ In reply to ]
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I haven’t watched video of the IMSA swim? How rough was it?
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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OverThresh wrote:
Tragic loss of life during triathlon swim (again). My heart goes out to the friends and families of these athletes.

https://triathlonworld.com/...-south-africa-147669

Last year an athlete lost his life during a race I participated in USAT nationals in Ohio. The swim conditions were difficult and getting worse. Yet officials continued to send wave after wave into the water for 30 minutes after a swimmer was pulled unconscious from the water. In my local pool if a person is pulled unresponsive from the water they get everyone out of the water! It is simple water safety.

I think race organizers need to stop sending swimmers into the water if any athletes are finding the conditions too difficult. Period. Stop sending the waves, reevaluate the conditions, call off the swim.
I agree totally. We should stop people driving cars because some people find driving conditions too difficult but they keep handing out licenses and stop serving alcohol because some people find drinking conditions to difficult but they keep selling beer. When will it stop! Someone else is always responsible...
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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In the link you posted, the athletes didn't seem to have problems with the swim conditions. They were able to get the help they wanted, pulled from the water, and sent to the hospital alive.

Look, your sentiment is well received but won't solve the problem you are trying to solve. Athletes with unknown yet pre-existing conditions can have the exact same problems in calm and pleasant waters. Sport has risk. Do we want people to succumb to said risk? Nope. Can we make it 100% safe? Also nope.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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The athlete who died in the swim in Cleveland last year was 75. The athletes who died in SA were 58 and 63. Unfortunately, these three data points seem to indicate that it is as much an age issue as it a difficult swim condition issue.

Does anyone know if the tri swim death statistics over the past five years show this to be true?
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [mickison] [ In reply to ]
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mickison wrote:
I haven’t watched video of the IMSA swim? How rough was it?


Swim times for the pros were pretty slow, Lucy Charles was 25mins for 1600m (I think), she should have been a good 5 mins quicker. I swam there for the worlds in Sep and we didn't have much swell, but there was a small, powerful breaking wave that was causing havoc for the novice OWS. Watching the women's race, you had swimmers looking back for the waves as they were coming to shore and surfing them in, others were oblivious to the waves and were getting picked up and badly dumped. I'd imagine with bigger swell the wave could be dangerous for inexperienced swimmers.

But it's triathlon, it's a sport with an element of danger, the chances are slim of getting an ocean swim that is warm, perfectly flat with no current/rips, no sharks etc Some of the people racing long course shouldn't be there, out of shape, health issues and little to no OWS experience. It's a surprise there aren't more fatalities/drownings. I don't think any action should be taken. I suppose ideally when you have a swim where conditions are challenging, you'd have a process that allowed the stronger swimmers to swim and the weaker swimmers could do a duathlon or something. Obviously that would be too hard to try and figure out, but it's a shame when you get swims cancelled and you're looking at the ocean and it's looking pretty good!
Last edited by: zedzded: Apr 9, 19 18:35
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
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I’ve done a few ocean swims. Most calm. Roughest one was just Olympic distance but it was cold and you felt like you were getting tossed around in a washing machine. I’m not a fast swimmer but I’ve never felt unsafe.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [ktm520] [ In reply to ]
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ktm520 wrote:
Grant.Reuter wrote:
No we don’t. Unfortunately people die while working out, unfortunately sometimes that’s during the swim.

However I would say a good 20 percent can’t handle the conditions of any swim they’re in, so should we just get rid of the swim? Because every race would have the swim cancelled based on your recommendation.


I think handling/discussing the issue with mortality rates during the swim and the individual ability level to swim is confounding the issue.
Perhaps we could look at it a bit more independently and for the mortality rate examine the link to hidden cardiac disease/pathology and know the swim event (for a variety of reasons) tends to exploit these problems.
I'd hate for people to think since they have above average swim fitness/ability with no anxiety they are immune to these tragic events. Could it raise the bar on an individual level, maybe, but if have an issue with your ticker, you have an issue...even at 1:10/100 pace.
You will find plenty of more than competent lifelong swimmers (a lot being males 40-60) that have had cardiac events in the water.
I think someone's medical fitness far outweighs their physical fitness when it comes to this topic and responsibility to address it are complicated to say the least.


I disagree as in 30 yrs of Masters swimming I've only ever seen one swimmer die in a meet, and he was 75. Granted, this is pool swimming but in many respects I think meets are more stressful than triathlon swimming b/c when you get up on the blocks, it is just you in your Speedo, w/o the masses of other swimmers to hide behind that you have in triathlon. Further, in Masters meets you have people actually sprinting all out vs in triathlon most people are just cruising on the swim. People who can swim well are very unlikely to have a heart attack during a tri swim. No way that "you will find plenty of more than competent lifelong swimmers (a lot being males 40-60) that have had cardiac events in the water". I think you are way off base here.


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
Last edited by: ericmulk: Apr 9, 19 20:24
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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Actually, I think Triathlon has a biking problem. People are being killed every week on their bikes. Races should all be on trainers inside. Totally unsafe.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [OverThresh] [ In reply to ]
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Both of those deaths were due to medical conditions, not weather/water conditions. I don't understand the purpose of this thread other than you saw the headine and didn't read the article.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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The stress of being up on the blocks of a masters meet, just you and your speedos waiting for the "starter beep", is a totally different type of stress than the stress of running full bore down the beach, launching through the surf, and sprinting through crashing waves with 300 other swimmers/triathletes bashing each other as they head to the first buoy turn (which is often just a few hundred meters away and a source of more thrashing and bashing among the swimmers). At a masters meet, I'm nervous on the blocks but never in fear for my life. In a triathlon swim, I have had numerous instances where I was concerned for my physical well-being, at least for the first few hundred meters.
One thing that hardly ever gets mentioned is this: In an OWS, you can suffer a major blow to the chest (for example, a blow from someone who inadvertently kicks you at the start) and that kind of blow can stop someone's heart. (This happens from time to time in little league baseball, where a kid dies when a ball is hit square into his chest and causes cardiac arrest). Often, the most dangerous "condition" in an OWS is the aggressiveness of your fellow competitors.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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[/quote] I disagree as in 30 yrs of Masters swimming I've only ever seen one swimmer die in a meet, and he was 75. Granted, this is pool swimming but in many respects I think meets are more stressful than triathlon swimming b/c when you get up on the blocks, it is just you in your Speedo, w/o the masses of other swimmers to hide behind that you have in triathlon. Further, in Masters meets you have people actually sprinting all out vs in triathlon most people are just cruising on the swim. People who can swim well are very unlikely to have a heart attack during a tri swim. No way that "you will find plenty of more than competent lifelong swimmers (a lot being males 40-60) that have had cardiac events in the water". I think you are way off base here.[/quote]

First let's not get it twisted, its more than competent and not more.

If you think I am way off-base because of your experience taken out of context in what is already a low incidence occurrence (thankfully), so be it, we can agree to disagree.

I stand by my post and hope it may put some balance in the conversation and for folks to get a cardiac workup with the presence of risk factors, any symptoms, or just clipping 50...and swim fitness or years spent in master's swimming would have no bearing on this recommendation.
Last edited by: ktm520: Apr 9, 19 21:14
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
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Agree. There has to be some personal responsibility taken here.
Challenge seems to have a good policy on this.
In one of the Melbourne races (the second one, 2014 maybe? not the hot one), there was a fairly strong chop.
The race officials gave people the option to skip the swim, and they would start on the beach, with their wave, starting once the last of their wave had exited the water.
If you could not make it through the breakers, you were shuffled into the beach start group.
The course was also modified to a W shape, so that the water safety crew had less physical space to patrol.
They had 3 IRB's, which were more heavily used than I have ever seen in any race, straight out, tapping people who looked like they might get into trouble, pull 3-5 people out of the water, drop them on the beach, and then straight back out. The waves were high enough that I was jumped by one of the boats, they couldn't see me on the other side of the wave.
I think that race holds my slowest swim in a HIM.

The rain and cross winds nearly had me ready to quit after the bike, and I ended up with one of my fastest run times in my history.
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [laughingfarmer] [ In reply to ]
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laughingfarmer wrote:
The stress of being up on the blocks of a masters meet, just you and your speedos waiting for the "starter beep", is a totally different type of stress than the stress of running full bore down the beach, launching through the surf, and sprinting through crashing waves with 300 other swimmers/triathletes bashing each other as they head to the first buoy turn (which is often just a few hundred meters away and a source of more thrashing and bashing among the swimmers). At a masters meet, I'm nervous on the blocks but never in fear for my life. In a triathlon swim, I have had numerous instances where I was concerned for my physical well-being, at least for the first few hundred meters.
One thing that hardly ever gets mentioned is this: In an OWS, you can suffer a major blow to the chest (for example, a blow from someone who inadvertently kicks you at the start) and that kind of blow can stop someone's heart. (This happens from time to time in little league baseball, where a kid dies when a ball is hit square into his chest and causes cardiac arrest). Often, the most dangerous "condition" in an OWS is the aggressiveness of your fellow competitors.

Well, I guess our tri swim experiences have been diff as I've only felt "concerned for my physical well-being" maybe once out of around 110 races. I usually start out on the outside and angle towards the first turn buoy. I have to swim a little farther but at least I'm mostly by myself, and the crowd has slowed down and thinned out by first buoy. The one time I was "concerned for..." was when I decided to try starting in the middle of the first row of swimmers in a mass start; that was a mistake but even that swim wasn't that bad after the first 50-75 yds. :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [Vincible] [ In reply to ]
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The minors on my son's swim team are far better equipped to handle the swim over 99% of adult triathletes.

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [laughingfarmer] [ In reply to ]
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You can suffer that same blow to the chest or even your head in a meet warm up. Have you ever been kicked by a really powerful breaststroke kick ?

Swimming a hard 400IM is way more physically stressful than any open water race. I'm maxing my pullouts in the breaststroke and gasping for air on Freestyle and have nearly passed out once.

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)
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Re: Triathlon has a swimming Problem [mickison] [ In reply to ]
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mickison wrote:
I haven’t watched video of the IMSA swim? How rough was it?

I was there. Standing on the beach it did not look too bad (there was little wind at that stage), but once we got in there it was rough. I am a middle of pack swimmer.

Details are still sketchy, but I heard that both guys were DOA at the hospital.. who knows.
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