USA Triathlon Nationals - A Note From the Race Director
from Mark Livesay on August 17, 2005
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Last weekend, for the first time ever, USAT’s Triathlon National Championships were cancelled because of bad weather. Here’s an account of the weekend’s events from Mark Livesay, the race director.
Of course it would be an understatement to say that August 13th was a disappointing day for the sport of triathlon. No decision in sports is more difficult than having to cancel a competition due to weather. Over a thousand athletes, hundreds of volunteers, and the entire event staff worked so hard and put so much effort into the 2005 USAT National Age Group Championship. Everyone has now returned home, but most will not soon forget August 13th, the day the 2005 National Age Group Championship was cancelled. This day marked the first time in the event’s long history that the race had to be cancelled.
“The collective group of USAT Board members, our Board President, the Race Director, a number of our senior staff members and a few outside parties all unanimously agreed that safety must come first. Based on all of the factors and predictions that were available, they had no choice but to recommend cancellation. Given the feedback we have received so far, the majority of our members agreed with this tough choice,” said Skip Gilbert - Executive Director - USA Triathlon.
Athletes from across the country have continued to call, e-mail, and post reports of support on the various online forums. These supporting athletes understand the seriousness surrounding the situation that forced the cancellation of the Championship. They understand that our sport is subject to extreme weather conditions from time-to-time, and most remember some unfortunate situations in the past when important cancellation decisions were not made.
As a triathlete myself, I can understand the disappointment, frustration and cost of preparing yourself mentally and physically. We all do that, this time only to be denied the opportunity to participate in the most important USA Triathlon event of the year. As a race director, I also understand what is at stake if things go terribly wrong and bad decisions are made.
August 13th was the worst day I’ve ever experienced in the sport of triathlon, I had tears in my eyes the moment we were forced to finally cancel the event. My staff and I were so looking forward to showing these athletes and the entire triathlon community what kind of world class event Ultramax Events was capable of producing. Like USAT, we put everything we had into the preparations for this event.
In the end neither USAT nor Ultramax Events were prepared to put 1,200 athletes and hundreds of volunteers in harms way. It became clear to us and continues to be clear that if we would have started the event athletes and volunteers could have been severely hurt or possibly killed. It was a grave risk that no one in my organization or USAT was willing to take, or could even consider taking.
There are still a few athletes out there that have questioned the decision to cancel the event. Perhaps they are not completely aware of the many factors that go into these decisions. Or maybe they would be willing to risk anything and everything just to participate in a triathlon. The rain and wet road alone were not a significant factor in the cancellation of the event. We tried several times to delay the race start in an attempt to find a window of racing opportunity.
Our volunteers and support crews stood in the cold pouring rain literally for hours while we waited for mother nature to cooperate, but she would not loosen her grip she had on Smithville Lake. This same weather forced the cancellation or delay of bike races, triathlons and even professional sporting events across Missouri.
First, the swim had to be cancelled because of extremely poor visibility on the water and the continued nearby lighting strikes. We were in constant contact with the weather service and they continued forecast heavy rain and lighting in the area for still several hours to come. We refused to put athletes in the water at a time when we could not see them or guarantee that they would exit the water before a lightning storm rolled in.
Even with the depressing forecast, we continued to have hopes that if we held out just a bit longer the lighting and rain would clear enough to allow the event to be staged using a modified bike/run. Another one-hour delay was announced and we made preparations to start the event using a bike time-trial format.
Within minutes of the announcement that the time-trial would begin, we had to issue the final cancellation of the race. At that moment the rain came down harder than ever and just kept coming. The visibility out on the open road was greatly reduced for both racers and traveling vehicles. Those two factors alone would have spelled disaster on curves and the open-to-traffic roads. The later the race was delayed the more traffic volume was expected on the course.
Reports continued to come in from our three bike coordinators that areas of the bike course had large amounts of standing water and in other places water was starting to creep several yards onto the bike course. The ground had been saturated and the water was continuing to rise above road level. You needed to look no further than the grass that was quickly becoming our mud-laden parking lot, to see that the rain had come down to hard and heavy to leave roadways unaffected. The standing water on the bike course along with reduced visibility conditions would have surely produced mass visits to the medical tent, the local hospital, or worse.
The conditions deteriorated to the point that the only logical decision was to cancel the race. The decision was made to stage a 6.2 mile Fun Run and several hundred athletes seemed to have a good time on a bad day. A few athletes made the best out of a bad day and even wore wetsuits and goggles on the run course.
The logistics of organization a 1,200-athlete triathlon would not permit delays far into the afternoon. It would also not allow the postponement to the following day. The sport of triathlon has a relatively short window of opportunity. These large events require a great number of volunteers, support crew and several areas of professional services. This massive support network has a defined time frame and unfortunately does have an expiration time limit. Most athletes that have volunteered or have a background in triathlon production understand this concept and have been incredibly supportive and understand the decision. Without this extensive network it would be nearly impossible to conduct a safe event. Actually, one amazing thing did happen on August 13th…. Ultimately, I did witness triathlete teamwork like I’ve never seen before. In a sport where you must do for yourself, the exact opposite was true the afternoon of August 13.
Just when we thought it was almost over and things could not get worse …It got worse and was not over for several more hours. Now we faced one huge last obstacle. Literally hundreds of cars were stuck in 6-8 inches of mud and muck in the field that we had once called our parking area. Like most state park type venues, grass parking was the only option with this massive number of cars. Several inches of rain in less than two hours had reduced a once dry desert-like grassy field into a 50-acre mudwrestling arena. When I first arrived at the parking lot I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Hundreds of athletes were just standing around in disbelief wondering what they were going to do. Virtually every car was stuck at this point.
The task we now faced was to push these cars out to the paved road one-by-one. Tow trucks began to arrive and line the roads. Before they had pulled a single car from the field they were also stuck alongside the cars. The tow trucks were utterly useless.
We started calling in tractors from any of the local farmers we could find. Some of these same farmers were facing farm foreclosures and bankruptcy due to the month-long drought that Kansas City experienced until Aug. 12. For a small donation to their church (made by USAT on behalf of the athletes), they began to arrive and pull one car at a time from the muddy field. At this pace it would have taken literally days to remove the cars, trucks and campers. The athletes seemed to sense and realize this. They started to organize and take matters into their own hands. With race staff, including the USAT Director and Board President, groups of 5 to 6 athletes began to group up and push cars hundreds of yards to the pavement. Then more and more athlete groups began to form. Even all women teams began to join forces. A wave of excitement actually began to develop. Before long dozens of athletes were working together pushing vehicles from the sticky muck. You could hear cheers coming from all over the field when a car would finally slide onto the pavement.
For a short time on August 13th it seemed like a few athletes and volunteers were actually having a good time. Four hours later we all emerged from the field with mud in places we thought impossible, but the very last car had been pushed from the mud