An attorney friend of mine also pointed out why the governing bodies may have no interest in conducting a study, they would have to act on the results. This is probably why the last study on swim fatalities only loosely recommended a pre race swim warm up. To make it mandatory would then place an enormous liability on the RD. I have heard it mentioned that most RDs hope for a wetsuit legal race, maybe they could have some influence in modifying the buoyancy shorts use rules.
The standard you’re bizarrely introducing is a “huge” safety feature, when have said marginally more than I can count.
But let’s mandate closed bike courses.
Let’s mandate everyone needs a personal kayak to follow on the swim.
Let’s mandate a defibrillator at every aid station.
There are plenty of safety things that aren’t practical. Who said you have to mandate everything that has a safety benefit?
Which is why I don’t think buoy shorts would ever be implemented by PTB’s especially as it likely only marginally improves swim safety- your own words. The best path forward would be ok cool- wear them and it goes in category of no awards. Still get to race, still get to be a badass in our sport. Just no award. Would you oppose that? The biggest issue I see with buoy shorts is that it will take more oversight, since they are very close in look to a tri short, you would have to basically examine every athlete entering the swim corral. Again for the most part, I actually like the buoy short idea, I don’t think it changes much with swim deaths, so I think it will largely be ignored. Whether that means we are all a bunch of swim elitist a-hole crumgudens, will be up to you to decide.
No need to implement marginal safety gains will be the PTB viewpoint. Until you improve likely swim emergency protocols and safety crew numbers you won’t likely be able to improve in water medical emergencies. But there is also a practicality to this as well to have a sport. They aren’t going to ever be able to safety proof it our real world location demands.
Is reduced time in the water a universally accepted benefit for triathlon? Last time I checked, the swim was already the poor relative of this sport, compared to the bike and run. I’m all for improved safety in races, but not at the expense of further unbalancing the triathlon legs.
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No it is not. We have these deaths in every length of swim, from a 400 yard to full Ironman distance swim. And most of them do not happen at the end either, it is somewhere in the middle +/-..And the few I have been around in short swims from 500 to 1500, all happened in the middle too. It would be a good stat to have, exactly what % of the actual swim did folks have their ending event. I find it interesting that in a super sprint is is a fe 100 yards, in an olympic about 800, and in Ironmans it is even later at 1500 to 2k yards typically.
So making the swims shorter would seem to have no real affect on these deaths, something else at play..
Yes. We’ve seen races cancel swims due to lack of water support. Getting people out of the water sooner means less time on water support crews, people on to the bike and run faster. More people finishing the swim instead of Dnfing. All of that is universally better for the athletes, volunteers, and communities.
Let’s keep in mind, we’re not just talking about the 1 minute faster that Sam Long now swims, but the possible 10 minutes faster that the back of packer might swim if they aren’t creating so much drag slogging through the water.
Debate the times all you want, but saving some energy in the swim helps across the rest of the race. This isn’t my saying let’s give everyone a jetski and make it faster. Because you don’t get a jet ski if the race is 0.1 cooler. People can argue all they want, this is a reasonable rule proposal* with virtually no downside.
*Allowing use of buoyancy shorts with no podium/slots penalty.
Debate mandatory all you like.
I think it’s very reasonable rule proposal. The “debate” is what you then have to do, to take it from having this as just another ST bullshit fodder to actually implementation in said sport. ST is 100% on “creating rules” for every single segment of our sport that never gets implemented aren’t we? We’ve solved tri’s problems 1000x over, and yet none of it never really becomes reality. That’s the real hurdle you have to figure out.
It’s why I told Von, if he actually creates a reasonable study, I’m all for financially supporting it. It’s going to be needed to be vetted, so you can actually have some scientific backing of it, and not just “because ST said so” as reasoning to do it.
My trials will only bring anecdotal results, and after getting a few recent derogatory comments on my other thread on this topic, any results will most definitely be ridiculed.
It’s a complicated issue because in a pool the LG’s are X feet/yards away at the most from swimmers. All that goes out the window in OW setting. So I still think the biggest factor in the swim is the safety personal more than anything.