This was a very reasonable decision. If the upstream current is faster than some people can swim (they'd go backwards) then the course gets modified. I'm not quite sure why this is so hard for folks to understand. HOWEVER, I have done a number of river swim races over many years and understand that this is just what happens at times.I am good with it and actually applaud IM for having their plan B in place and ready to go.

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David, first off- no need to get an attitude in your response. 2nd- If your swim venue is applauded for going to "plan b" 40% of the time, you have an swim venue problem. 3rd- As I asked was the current "extra strong" this year? Caused by recent rains, etc? Or is this just turning into an venue where nearly half the time they get applauding for going to to the lowest common denominator. 4th- I've been in this sport long enough to realize that we as a sport are getting really really soft on the swim venue/changing it. We change the swim venue many many times because we have become "soft" as a sport. But of course I understand why they do it- who the hell wants to be an RD where X percent of your racers cant finish because they didn't properly train for your event, so what do you do? You go to "plan B" which is either an very modified event or just cancel it all together. So I completely understand why RD and races change the swim any chance they can get. It's their ass on the line when people don't properly train for the event get in trouble and die. So they make these moves that is applauded by people such as yourself as "reasonable". It's only reasonable because we've become lazy in our prep and acceptance of training. Sometimes it's ok to fail when your not properly prepared, that's a far better decision than just changing it time after time for what many will say isn't a "reasonable decision". It's only a reasonable decision because we as a sport are accepting that.

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

The current was not strong on Sunday. There have been no heavy rains in the Chattanooga area as of late and the river has been pretty much "normal" for several weeks. All major rivers in the southern US are damn controlled so you cannot avoid that. TVA controls the current daily and if there have been no heavy rains they can bring the flow down so that you can barely notice any current. I am puzzled as to why they modified the swim yesterday.

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Thx this is what I was asking and looking for as to why they actually changed it.

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

Why can't they just pick a spot roughly 1.2 miles from the swim exit (so that it is all downriver & current isn't a factor)? The bike for the 140.6 is 4 miles long, but everyone knows that......sign up & deal with it or don't sign up. For the 70.3, even if they have to make the swim 100 or 200 yards long or whatever (for river access), you'd know that before you sign up. And it would be all downriver so your time would be comparable or possibly still even faster than 1.2 miles.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Probably because the 1.2 mile start point would be in the middle of a condominium development whose back yards sit on the river. That, and there is no easy river access there. And, given the nature of the residential development, there is probably no easy way to manage a few thousand swimmers milling around on neighborhood streets and resident back yards. I'm guessing that no one in that neighborhood wants a few dozen porta potties in their front yards and a loudspeaker in their back yard blaring music and announcements at 0500 AM on a Sunday.

I am curious about objective measure of the river current. I was there 2 years ago, and I watched the pros barely swimming upstream. This weekend, a friend of mine swam almost the same time as me 2 years ago, and he is a way slower swimmer than me. So, either he turned on the jets, or the current was fast and it boosted him.

No attitude, but I don't agree with you. I've been around a long, long time. You (not you personally) don't stage (most) races and make decisions based on the pointy end. This is a business and they need to attract the numbers. All really perfectly reasonable. If they don't attract the numbers, then they won't have to numbers to allow me to do these sort of races so that I can take a shot at the pointy end. So, I want their "business" to do well.

I've been on the decision making end of event issues . . . not always as easy or straightford as some believe. Choo is a GREAT venue, the city supports the events, it is a fun place, and many enjoy racing there . . . it attracts numbers. Great choice for IM, even though they beat out my city's proposal and our swim wouldn't have been affected by river currents. But, it is a river swim which interjects an additional dynamic. Certainly, I understand that some don't like that dynamic, which is ok, so they should just pick a different race.

As far as "soft, " that is all relative. You are not soft and rightfully inform us of that. For some folks doing that race it is certainly is a "stretch" and they don't train like we do, but that's OK - I think we want them. More people adds a larger base which ultimately will be better for the sport. We've got a first time sprint race with a pool swim upcoming. We have some beginners who may walk some of the swim . . . I'm not going to call them soft; rather, I'm going to show them love like they have never seen and welcome them to our sport. Personally, I think that is in the best interest of all of us.

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

I agree, very reasonably spoken. I love Choo and have lived in the area my entire life. The city supports these events as well if not better than any other. But, I am still confused why they altered the swim. I guess it was to just insure that everyone had a good time.

I’m going to call anyone “soft” who purposely enter races and don’t train properly for them. It’s those people who have help create
this issue and it’s your mindset that welcomes them doing it regardless if they are ready for it. And it’s your mindset that we should be more welcoming and thus create these decisions that will continue to have swims altered more and more.

But oh it’s because it’s good for business so that makes it cool.

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

At the pro meeting they told us they were going to time the pro women to the turn buoy. If it took them long enough that they knew the slower AGers wouldn’t safely be able to handle the upriver stretch, they would pull the buoys and AGers all down river. It seemed to be a pretty simple calculation.

As for the river flow, the discharge rate was ~7000. For comparison, when we had our pro meeting on Saturday they told us it was ~70,000. I would say that we ended up swimming roughly 2-3 minutes faster than we would have on, say, an Eagleman type course. The current was noticeable but not crazy, and the net effect was positive given the longer downriver stretch.

Well, it sounds like you should (are?) just blame me!! That's ok, I'll turn it around and take credit!! If you have any soft people you want to send down the road to my race on June 9 - http://www.SmileySprintTri.com - please do. Not only will it be great but I'll give every one of them a great big soft hug at the finish line . . . every last one of them!!

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

I wasn't there, and like I said earlier a good friend raced yesterday. Her dad is a professional River Boat Captain from Knoxville. He said "the current north shore was very strong, the current on the south side, not so much".

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Are there some people who, with more training, would be far more adept at swimming upriver? Sure. Are there also participants who, no matter how long you put them in the pool, would still struggle and not go anywhere? Yeah.

The fact of the matter is that they have to put athlete safety of all participants first. They don't like having to cut swims. Talk to any of the OPS team about it at the next event you attend -- guarantee you they're disappointed when they can't run the full event. But it's not for lack of trying.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

People sign up for this race because Chattanooga is a great host city and venue. Folks also sign up for this one and the Ironman there because they expect a fast swim. It was delivered.

I’m blaming the culture that we are apart of that is having to cancel more and more swims or modify them because likely we are less prepared than we should be.

But as I said I get it. It’s why I won’t RD. I’d cancel every swim because I’d be too damn afraid of someone dying. I coach swimmers on deck I see them coming to me “hey I have this open water swim race in 2 months but I can only swim 200m right now, I’ll be good right with a few coached sessions right”.

I’m all about being inclusive I’m just simply about being prepared. And I think because we’ve lost our way with that process we get more and more canceled swims.

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

Read your whole exchange and agree completely. Further, it's not a stretch to go so far as saying we shouldn't be encouraging, promoting, or "welcoming" participants into IM/70.3 races who aren't capable of completing the swim, or have no desire to put in the effort to be prepared for swim conditions. If you can't swim, hate swimming, and don't want to swim, don't sign up and hope that conditions will warrant a swim cancellation. Just.. don't sign up. It's triathlon. To be fair, race organizers exacerbate the problem by putting swims in rivers. Downstream? Ehh.. OK, I dislike it personally because it neutralizes swim advantage, but at least everyone can race. Upstream? Is it always logistics? If so then find another swim venue. Moving water is not predictable, and introducing people who can't swim 2 miles an hour against the current is just foolish.

See I’m not arguing that though. Of course safety has to be #1. It’s why ice said 100x RD is a hard af job. But what I’ve simply said is that when we create this “anyone” can do it matra and attitude we will continue have to play to the lowest factor. I just “fired” 3 athletes (3 best friends who all do same races) this past Dec cus they signed up for an IM when imo they are 2 years away. I told them can you finish? Maybe they can sneak in a 16:30 or maybe the can’t and my main reason was that they just weren’t ready for the training that I thought they needed with where they were. They’ve been in the sport not even 18 months and one couldn’t even swim 18 months ago. I asked them what’s the rush, to enjoy the training and process. I told them this 6 months ago when they asked about an IM. Of course they are free to do whatever they want, just like I don’t have or want to coach them for that event right now. They were stunned I let them go but after breaking down each person’s training demands they understood. Of course they went with another coach (I gave them coach contacts who I thought they would mesh with) and maybe they finish but 2 are broken already from the “training demands”. I saw that happening a mile away and knew they simply weren’t ready.

But that’s the issue we are going against. This “I can do anything” attitude that we apparently need to survive as a sport. I’m ok with telling someone no and hurting their feelings if I think it’s the right call. But again anyone can sign up for any race and train however they want. We just now are caught up with having to deal with that training philosophy in our races now; IE- cancelled/modified swims for “athlete safety”.

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

I raced Chattanooga... I swam about 35 seconds per/100y faster than normal. Whatever that tells you

I don't get to bent about RD's altering the course as long as everyone is racing the same course. However, if swimming is your strong suit it does put you at a disadvantage and I would not sign up for a river swim. Just sign up for a race like Muncie. It will be full distance and not current assisted

My understanding was about 4000 athletes entered Chattanooga. 3500 of those are completers and they paid for 500 athletes to compete. If IM didn't cater to the completers, there wouldn't be a race occupying Chattanooga's waterfront for you to compete in

But Muncie got changed to approx. "Olympic" distance in 2012............

Edit: to clarify date.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Due to extreme heat the entire race was altered. Had nothing to do with the swim

I don't know anything about what happened at Chattanooga yesterday but I agree there has been an increased catering to 'athletes' that simply want to check Ironman off their bucket list but don't want to properly train for the swim. The constant hand-wringing that goes on in Ironman (insert event name here) Facebook groups about "What am I going to do if it's not wet suit legal?' post followed immediately by a host of 'just start after everyone else' comments is frightening. How about the notion that if you sign up for an Ironman you commit to conditioning your body to swim 2.4 miles without a wet suit on? Then come race day and it turns out that you get to wear one because of the water temperature than bonus! This is true with the 70.3 events as well. I'm sorry this won't be popular but if you know you can't swim 1.2 miles without a wet suit on or you can't swim in a lake/ocean/river or whatever venue the event is taking place in without the aid of a current, then maybe you shouldn't be signing up for these events.

 But back to my original question what environmental factors led to the decision? Like was this a fast moving current? From accounts in this thread that doesn’t sound to be the case.

I can understand if the river is moving 6 mph or 6 ft breakers. But from all accounts this was “normal” conditions for the river. No rain last few days or week where they had to open the dam a bunch. It seemed we just have too many athletes who can’t handle “normal” conditions.

But anytime you insert the buzzword “athlete safety” you can’t really argue it. No one wants to endanger athletes, I’m just asking were conditions there really adverse. Or is this just unprepared athletes helping contribute to the problem?

To me that’s the issue. That we aren’t even talking extreme conditions that now we are modifying at almost any adversity.

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

Ummm, actually, they could have the swim in the lake above the dam, where there is essentially zero current. The dam is about 9 miles away from downtown though, so to finish the race downtown, you have a two transition, point to point race. The original Chatt tri known as the Riverbend Triathlon/Chattanooga's DAM Triathlon did exactly this from circa 1983-2006, with a 1000 to 1500 m swim at the dam, 40 - 48 K bike finishing about 3 mi from the dam (such that the race did not interfere with other users of the dam recreation area all morning), then the 10K run to finish downtown.

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

This is not an athlete safety issue, it was just a pure and simple athlete DNF issue. Whatever the current was, there would have been some that could not do the upward leg, thus a DNF. It doesnt cause people to drown, it just causes them not to finish. I think this is the issue now, why does everyone have to finish? I remember swim starts in the old days, there would be 20 to 30 rescues in the first 2 to 6 minutes of the swim, all back to shore for a DNF. Usually if you made it 6 minutes in, you were fine to finish the swimm.

Guessing there was some time per 100 you had to do to be able to go upstream in this race, that a good portion could not do. Any other race they would make the cutoffs for swim time, but this is an added wrinkle, having to be able to do 2;00 100's upstream(or whatever it was). So instead of having just a few DNF's at the swim cutoff, missing the total time, they were going to have many more, and not at the finish, but more like a rescue.

And it would be a mix of folks, old people that just swim slow, and new AOS athletes that are just starting out, and a few unprepared folks, the ones that show up to every single race ever put on..

To me, if most of the people are going to finish a proper swim, then just have it. DNF the ones that couldn't make it, and let that be a known thing about your race going forward. Since it fills anyway, that would just up the level of swimming ability, instead of doing the exact opposite by shortening, or swimming downstream every year. People notice these things, and enter accordingly. For me as a RD, I would want a higher level of swimmer if I had the choice, and they do have that choice...

Here's the thing, Monty -- it wouldn't sell out if you had a mass of people that needed to either be pulled out of the water or DNF'd. You'd be lucky to reach 75% capacity the following year.

For myself, I wouldn't choose to do this race -- because unless we can guarantee the upstream part of the swim happening, I lose my advantage from all the swim work I've been doing. I'd rather go do a race that is almost guaranteed to go off -- and perhaps even with some chop on the ocean while we're at it.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Yes you pretty much nailed it!

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

Here's the thing, let's say that...

• The current is fast enough that a chunk of swimmers would either go backwards or take so long to swim the first leg that they have no shot at the cutoff
• People will start the race regardless of their common sense assessment of ability to finish
• The number of weak swimmers will be a few hundred
• The race director & team will not be able to identify the week swimmers until they need rescue
  
• The rescues will need to occur in the first couple hundred yards of the swim, including some who are going backwards from the start
  

If those assumptions are valid, then the race would need to have a major percentage of its water safety volunteers stationed in a cluster at the first 100 yards of the start. That is not viable. So, if the conditions are even on the bubble, then the RD would have to shorten the swim.

But what if the RD would offer a short swim for those on the bubble, kind of like the wetsuit optional option when the water temperature is just a little over? They could do the race, but they would not be considered for awards or placing stuff. And, the threat/carrot is that if someone opts for the full swim and cannot make it, they DNF and are out. Seems like a cool out-of-box approach that could make everyone happy.

I did Gulf Coast 70.3 last week, and I am very thankful that the RD made the decision to let us swim. That race has fantastic water volunteer support, but the FB page said it had record DNF because of the swim.

Realistically, the Chattanooga 70.3 scenario is a fringe case. How many races have an upstream river swim? Is this the only one?
And second, how many times in its history has it been shortened (just 2017 and 2019, or more)?