Anything that is advocated with “requiring”” 100% compliance is going to need a high bar of assurance that said implementation will have an markedly improvement in swim deaths. I’ve added that in elites and DL pathway medical physicals are required, so there is atleast a starting point there (but likely won’t work at AG scale). I wonder just how much extra work is on RD to have a swim warm up as part of any federation sanctioning / insurance race.
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Here is AI opinion on deaths in triathlon:
Triathlon fatalities occur at a rate of approximately 1.5 to 1.74 per 100,000 participants, making it a relatively safe sport despite its intensity. While rare, deaths are often concentrated in the swim segment (roughly 67% to 90% of cases), with a significant portion due to underlying cardiovascular issues.
and asked to compare that to say pickleball:
While pickleball is generally safe, studies of U.S. emergency room data have identified a small number of deaths associated with the sport, predominantly due to cardiac arrests among older adults. While thousands of injuries occur, fatalities are rare, with specific studies noting roughly 1–5 deaths reported in analyzed data sets.
and asked what sports are almost totally risk free:
While no physical, full-contact sport is completely immune to the risk of death, low-impact, non-contact sports like Curling, Archery, or Table Tennis offer the closest thing to absolute immunity from fatal injury. These activities minimize high-speed collisions, falls, or lethal strikes.
I’ll stick with triathlon!
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Isn’t pickle ball, mostly an elders sport who are probably already high risk?
I don’t know what buoyancy shorts are, but from your calculations, I gather there is 3 liters of foam in there. That seems huge to me. More than most pullboys. Are you sure about that number ? If so, I can understand why it would not be allowed as it would be a huge help in the water, even more than using a pullboy (but I get the analogy about supershoes and other gadgets, and agree that it’s more or less the same thing)
I play table tennis and I’d be willing to bet there are way more deaths in table tennis than triathlon. The heart rate can go up quite high, the buildings we play in can get quite hot, and a lot of elderly players. Don’t know if it’s true, but during my last game, the president of opposite club said they had to use defibrilator twice in the last week.
Crossing over from the swim death in texas threads where I talked about the French system where we did not need to see a doctor anymore to play sports. I actually had to go to the doctor to play table tennis as I am older than 40. And from what I understand will have to go again every 5 years. Not so in triathlon.
The lesson here, as always : don’t trust what AI says 
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Classic slowtwitch thread
- Someone ranting about ironman rules
- Someone doing highschool physics
- Someone quoting ChatGPT
- Someone trashing new swimmers
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- all of it being a replica of a very recent existing thread on the exact same subject
Re: basic physics, could you please enlighten us and improve the basic buoyancy force analysis?
ETA: just pointing out that yours is a typical ST response; you write a dismissive condescending call out to a basic but relatively correct analysis, yet you add no value whatsoever by further expanding or flagging any issues. No need to solve Navier-Stokes to calculate buoyancy forces, what he offered is sufficient to support his argument.
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I’ll send you my LinkedIn profile, and you tell me if I’m qualified to conduct an experiment.
We are talking about anything that in any way shape or form may improve swim safety. Many here seem to think that’s a joke. I’ll bring this topic up after the next swim death. Hopefully it won’t occur, but it seems hope is all we have.
Well Scientist. how about using your skills to assist in a study to help reduce the occurrence of swim deaths in trained triathletes. It’s always disappointing to hear ‘experts’ chime in on a topic, provide some pedantic smug statement, and then disappear leaving others to do the actual work.
Are you in favor of people wearing aero helmets being eligible for age group awards? What about carbon shoes?
All this angst over a proposal that might shave a minute off swim times but increase confidence in the water for many who are freaking terrified about nonwetsuit swims. Look at any Facebook group where the water temp is a question and you have so many people stressing.
It’s not a problem. Simply allow them if the swim isn’t wetsuit legal. This idea of getting marginally faster on the swim being something we have to prevent is just silly. Especially because EVERY ONE IS FINE with the performance benefit of a wetsuit in the cold. But if it’s a little warm? Hell no, then we have to be purists? What nonsense.
Water safety is a real thing. It can help in a few ways. I’m surprised anyone would be against it on serious reflection about the tradeoffs and benefits.
It’s irrelevant what he/you/any of us said, it’s how the sport treats it. Currently our sport treats extra swim aids as disqualification for awards, irregardless of how anyone particular feels or even if it makes no sense that swim is treated that way, but the B or R isn’t. So until this is taken up to the PTB’s in our sport that’s going to be what your up against. Swim aids are so easy to distinguish, if its not wetsuit legal, yeah the ppl wearing them are then ineligible and easy to distinguish. I couldn’t even tell you what a super shoe is these days with just looking at them. It seems they are all basically some form of supershoe characterisitic. So could you absolutely add buoyance shorts to the list, you probaly could; it would be harder to officiate imo from the naked eye so to speak; you would require more thorough examination of each athlete entering the water. Unless your saying it’s mandated, but I think when you mandate anything in a sport- you have a higher bar to prove it’s worth mandating it’s safety effectiveness.
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I never claimed to be an “expert” - you have mistakenly assigned that moniker to me. I will clarify my self-described title of “scientist” - it should be “retired scientist”. I’m out! 
Swim aids in the form of a wetsuit are just fine if the water is cold. Swim aids in the form of a swim skin are just fine if the water is warm. It’s not much of a stretch to say the bouancy shorts are fine if it’s warm and wetsuit is fine if it’s cold.
You might reply the wetsuit is for the cold a real safety concern… Ahem cough cough. Ya, so is open water swimming.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch, just like it’s technically not much of a stretch to just mandate doctor physicals like they already do for elites/DL pathway. We all know they won’t take it to that level, just like I think they would probaly go with some type of swim warm up mandate before every requiring buoy shorts for participants. I think one of the biggest issues is that the solutions aren’t “easy” to just implement. Swim warm up means that RD has to add 2-3 more LG’s for that swim area. Requiring everyone to get EKG is just putting more on the AG athlete. This is probaly the *cheapest option of any option being debated.
I think asking for it to be allowed in the rules vs mandating it be required I think has to very different pathways and thresholds.
I guess I’d be fine having a physical once a year and submit like renewing my USAT license. But it’s adding cost to the sport and won’t catch a potential heart attack. A physical is a pretty basic ‘grab the nuts and cough’ for those that have them. Adding buoyancy shorts would be safer and probably get more people into the sport.
TechnicaIly it’s a medical questionnaire+physical+EKG (that’s the important part); not just the ole school physical your thinking of. Bouy shorts won’t help the unconcious person, probaly the only thing that will help with that is better water safety coverage.
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Okay, but even that won’t determine my swim ability, my anxiety level on race day, my reaction to cold water or choppy water, etc…Those are things a buoyancy device would help with if my body shut down. I’d be curious if any of the people that have died during a triathlon had a medical physical within a year of competing.