Apparently a 41 year old Russian athlete:
That’s the 2nd time we sadly experience that.
Unfortunate death streak for IM Barcelona - last year the head-on collision accident and this year this.
There has been 2 swim deaths before, in 2013 and in 2019…
I’m sure this has been said before, but it’s important to look at the background rate of heart attack/cardiac arrest before attributing anything to the race specifically. The numbers in the US are 800,000 heart attacks/350,000 cardiac arrest per year for a population of 330 million, so 0.2% and 0.1% of the population affected per year. Ironman events have ~1,000 participants. Let’s call and IM half a day, or 0.5/365th of a year (0.0013 years). 0.001heart issues/person-year1,000persons0.0013years/event=~0.13 heart issues/event. So ~1 out of every 7 IM’s should see a heart issue based on nothing more than the background rate. The fact they don’t is a testament to the general health of participants.
3 Likes
The Spanish article quotes a local coach mentioning that most Ironman races does not requiere any kind of check whether the athletes signing up are actually anything near FIT enough or has any heart situation. In France a medical certificate is required at sign up and at race reg on the day before the race.
That is a great idea IMO
I dont think IM Barcelona is worse than any other races on the swim side now. Its a rolling start, well organized and the Half Ironman on the same day/course has been cancelled so way fewer bike out (Which was a main cause for the bike death last year)
