Another triathlon death in swimming :(

Generalizing about how triathletes don't know how to swim, or don't know how to swim in a pack, is fun (and truthy, if not strictly true) but it's completely off-point for this tragedy. As you can see from reading the article as well as the excerpt chaos posted from a conversation between people who were there: (1) the race didn't have a mass start; and (2) the person died toward the end of the swim, not at the beginning. Furthermore, sarah_q's post links to a conversation mentioning that the person was a very experienced triathlete. They had a similar death at this year's Vineman, in Northern California--a very experienced triathlete had a medical emergency toward the end of the swim, and it turned out to be fatal. In both cases, I think that a previously undiagnosed heart abnormality, or high water temperature at least in the Vineman case, is far more likely than athlete underpreparedness to have been the cause. This. Speculating as to why someone died in the swim without any facts supporting the speculation is, I am not so sure fun, but it is popular. It helps people think "it won't happen to me because I am not one of them." That's my theory at least. That's not always true. I am a sub 1 hour IM (2.4 mile) swimmer. Fast for those folks, not fast here, and I was pulled from a race for a very serious unforeseen medical condition that might not have ended well had there not been lifeguards there.

Generalizing about how triathletes don't know how to swim, or don't know how to swim in a pack, is fun (and truthy, if not strictly true) but it's completely off-point for this tragedy. As you can see from reading the article as well as the excerpt chaos posted from a conversation between people who were there: (1) the race didn't have a mass start; and (2) the person died toward the end of the swim, not at the beginning. Furthermore, sarah_q's post links to a conversation mentioning that the person was a very experienced triathlete. They had a similar death at this year's Vineman, in Northern California--a very experienced triathlete had a medical emergency toward the end of the swim, and it turned out to be fatal. In both cases, I think that a previously undiagnosed heart abnormality, or high water temperature at least in the Vineman case, is far more likely than athlete underpreparedness to have been the cause. This. Speculating as to why someone died in the swim without any facts supporting the speculation is, I am not so sure fun, but it is popular. It helps people think "it won't happen to me because I am not one of them." That's my theory at least. That's not always true. I am a sub 1 hour IM (2.4 mile) swimmer. Fast for those folks, not fast here, and I was pulled from a race for a very serious unforeseen medical condition that might not have ended well had there not been lifeguards there.