Full story:
www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../25369.asp
Excerpt:
Passages: Fran Crippen, 26 - FINA, USA Swimming Release Statements -- October 23, 2010
FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates, October 23. SHORTLY after the FINA Open Water 10K World Cup swim today in the UAE, United States swimmer Fran Crippen, 26, passed away after falling unconscious during the race.
With the water in the mid-to-high 80s, the competitors all finished and noticed that Crippen had not crossed the finish line. Meet management brought in deep sea divers, who found Crippen unconscious just before the final buoy nearly two hours later. He was transported to the Fujairah Hospital and later died according to information provided to Swimming World. Conflicting reports state that he was found dead on the course.
Crippen had shown signs of slowing down during the third lap of the five-lap race. When Crippen did not immediately finish, a fact noticed by teammate Alex Meyer who screamed for help, the competing swimmers rushed back into the water to help with the search.
Information provided to Swimming World demonstrates that the water was likely too hot for the event as several swimmers were treated for heat exhaustion after the race....
In fact, FINA's minimum temperature rule is 16C, or 60.8F. They are not telling you that you can't swim in colder water, but they are telling you they won't sanction the event, and the rule probably does reflect some risk analysis. When they had Worlds at Stanford in 2006, my understanding is that the reason they had the OW race at Crown Beach instead of making it an iconic Alcatraz swim was that the water temperature between Alcatraz and Aquatic Park is not reliably over 16C.
Fair enough... I forget that a lot of the swims I do are not FINA-approved, as that is not something that is particularly important to me. So then, my revised worry would be that other open-swims would follow suit. Literally thousands of swims are done from Alcatraz each year (I did one myself this year) without incident -- but again, they are all well-monitored with kayaks, etc.
(Semi-relatedly -- the temperature of water did vary dramatically across the swim. They told us that it was 60 degrees, but I'm willing to bet that parts were colder than that (and parts warmer, too). So, it can become hard to judge what "the" water temperature is).
In fact, FINA's minimum temperature rule is 16C, or 60.8F. They are not telling you that you can't swim in colder water, but they are telling you they won't sanction the event, and the rule probably does reflect some risk analysis. When they had Worlds at Stanford in 2006, my understanding is that the reason they had the OW race at Crown Beach instead of making it an iconic Alcatraz swim was that the water temperature between Alcatraz and Aquatic Park is not reliably over 16C.
Fair enough... I forget that a lot of the swims I do are not FINA-approved, as that is not something that is particularly important to me. So then, my revised worry would be that other open-swims would follow suit. Literally thousands of swims are done from Alcatraz each year (I did one myself this year) without incident -- but again, they are all well-monitored with kayaks, etc.
(Semi-relatedly -- the temperature of water did vary dramatically across the swim. They told us that it was 60 degrees, but I'm willing to bet that parts were colder than that (and parts warmer, too). So, it can become hard to judge what "the" water temperature is).
