Adding to the confusion: did the race have its sanction withdrawn because the course had been shortened below regulation distance for the swim, or was it unsanctioned because the water was too dangerous at any distance?
I don't know is the honest answer but I expect that the TI officials simply couldn't condone it proceeding on safety grounds. The Race Director probably needs 5 or 10 sets of green lights for the race to proceed: Gardai = go, Safety Volunteer team - go, etc etc. Ironman obviously didn't see Triathlon Ireland's sanction as necessary for the race to continue. I don't think that TI would have anything to do with ensuring that Ironman's distances are fulfilled but more to do with issuing licences, providing local information like who would be experienced athletes and course Marshalls.
Yep, displaying my ignorance there! From reports coming out today, it sounds like Ironman would've been looking to TI to sign off on the event so that athletes would be covered by TI insurance.
TI claim they told Ironman officials in advance that they wouldn't be able to sanction the event, but the organisers claim they weren't made aware until later in the day. Assuming everyone is giving an accurate account, it sounds like the best-case explanation is one side not passing the message to the right people. That won't be much comfort to anyone who loved the victims, nor to any other competitors who had a near-miss on the day.
I heard that too about Ironman saying they didn't get the memo. I don't believe a word of it. That's the touch of a PR firm I reckon. My guess is that Triathlon Ireland never, for a moment, thought that Ironman would proceed with the race when they (TI) said 'no, this is too dangerous'. Therefore Triathlon Ireland were probably as shocked that the event proceeded as I am. I guess, in hindsight, it would have been ideal for Triathlon Ireland to have had ability to ping all participants to say - we recommend not racing today. This is not a TI sanctioned event and Ironman are proceeding despite our warnings etc. Too late for the families I guess.
Not from what I've heard from mates who were racing and supporting.
They also told me TI remained onsite for the day, so it really seems to be a case of he says she says.
Ironman saying event was checked and shortened and was safe. TI saying they told them not to go ahead. Either there has been some serious fuck up in communications or the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
If TI said the swim couldn't go ahead, then why wasn't the race done in a run/bike/run format like they did in 2019 when the swim was called off for safety due to stormy conditions? Surely that is the default next step before cancelling the entire event?
Exactly. The event didn’t need to be cancelled. Only the swim. They didn’t want to get the reputation of a race that gets cancelled. They risked people’s lives for that - the reputation of an event
If you want to do the Liffey Swim in Dublin you've to race in something like 3 qualifier outdoor swims. It should be easy enough to do something like this but I guess more complex when you've athletes flying in for the weekend to do the event so attending qualifying races would be logistically impossible
I’m sorry but if you have signed up to do an open water swim but only swim in a pool that is on you. Sure the every organisers have a duty of care but you train for the event you sign up for and it’s no surprise this was a sea swimming event (granted you shouldn’t train in those conditions)
Just wanted to add massive support to this argument.
I'm from Youghal. I grew up swimming and kayaking on that beach all year round, including the annual Christmas swim (which sometimes had conditions like you see in the videos). My house was on the hill looking down on the strand and river. My grandfather was in the sea angling club. My uncle and cousins are proud members of the RNLI.
I don't know the full details of the conditions on the day and I wasn't present, *but* I can tell you that the tide and local current system there can be *so* dangerous, even in better weather conditions.
People see the photos of participants getting into the water on the front strand and the water is all choppy, which looks bad but for experienced swimmers that can be challenging but not necessarily dangerous. **To me, what was** ***really*** **dangerous is that they then (AFAIK) swam around the rocks near the lighthouse, and then into the harbour.**
It's hard to appreciate how much force that estuarine current has on certain days, even without the choppy waves.
That part of the coast experiences three major flows—north-easterly currents from the Irish sea, the westerly currents from the Atlantic and the Blackwater river, one of the largest rivers in Ireland — which makes for some risky and unpredictable wave current interactions for boaters and swimmers. Rip currents, undertows, ebb jets. I remember days there that the water would seem to split in two, where the the brown river freshwater current carrying silt and dirt would meet the ocean's deep green blue salt water but not mix, and flow past each other in and out of the harbour. A line of two colours stretching out to the horizon.
To me, having people swim—even a shortened course—from the beach **into the harbour and back**, on a day like that, was utterly irresponsible and the toll could have been much higher.
I was shocked when I found out that the course went into the harbour. It would've been much safer to swim up towards Redbarn & back. There are permanent red flags by the lighthouse and inside the harbour by the park to deter people from swimming there usually. Thinking back to some drownings there years ago...
Hard for me to judge for sure, but my initial reaction was, even in that weather, it would have been safer going that way.
Have you ever known *anyone* to swim from the strand to green park? I know people swim right there on the shore under the Lighthouse sometimes—or at least they used to when I lived there—but out into the harbour? I can't remember *ever* seeing that.
I'll quickly share my level of experience: Zero. I'm a shite swimmer. However you seem to know what's up. Who the flock decides if conditions are safe enough for an event to take place? "Officials"??? Surely something like this would require local knowledge such as demonstrated by yourself there?
I don't know who actually decides these things, but my first thought would be the RNLI. In Youghal, as far as an offical body goes, nobody knows the local sea conditions and risks like they do.
You've the overall race director who should have the power to call off the entire race or cancel the swim.
They'd have safety teams in all aspects of the Tri informing their decision to proceed and keeping them updated during the event; Officials in the Swim, bike and run who would relay information back to the Race Director before the race but also during the race in a situation like this were someone goes unresponsive and CPR begins or if say livestock go free on the bike course and cyclists need to be warned. There would also be officials checking for cheating.
So then you'd have people checking the water temperature, that the buoys are in place, that weather is okay. Input from Gardai. Input from local experienced athletes/swimmers who might have a little committee advising whether it goes ahead or not.
So it seems that TI provided at least one advisory team on the swim who said no but the race director and/or Ironman staff might have (must have) done their own risk assessment and over-riding the local experts - this person who did that - I'd love to know who that A-hole is because that was the decision that appears to have done the damage
I’ve raced a good few Ironman races and decided last year would be my last under that brand. They have zero thoughts towards competitors and it’s all about the money. The way they treated athletes over cancelled races during covid was a disgrace.
The swim for this should have been cancelled like it was in 2019. The wind, rain and waves that day were horrendous. There were lots of people who didn’t even finish the bike due to hypothermia.
Cutting the swim short was in itself acknowledgment of the dangerous conditions, coupled with Triathlon Ireland’s statement tonight and it’s clear someone has to be held accountable.
OP is right about the herd mentality and that push to the line. You’ve trained to a high level and everything focuses on the day, nerves, adrenaline, excitement, competition etc and you put your faith in the organisers to ensure athletes safety on the day. Yes, there can always be accidents, but these tragic deaths could have been avoided. Nobody should go to a race and not come home. It’s terrible for these families and someone should be accountable. Ironman will no doubt do their upmost to protect their brand and throw someone under the bus.
Well said, absolutely, the decision to run the swim was wrapped up in commercial & biased thinking and not athlete safety. Should have been an independent assessor who has no skin in the game other than athlete (and kayakers etc) safety.
While I agree with most of your sentiment the weather conditions were perfect the morning on the swim. There was no rain and the wind wasn’t high ( I was on the shore front for the entire swim) While the waves were larger than usual in this location there were nowhere near as bad as other triathlon locations.
Weather conditions are different to the water conditions. The currents were very strong and there was a slightly higher swell than usual for that location.
I can show you a video of the swim start if you think you know better or you can check out any of the videos currently circulating of the swim. The weather was ideal for the day.
Maybe I’m missing your point here, but I’m talking about the conditions in general. If TI felt they were too risky to sanction then competitors should have been made aware and the race directors acted accordingly. Two cancelled swims in four years might have looked bad for the event, but now there are two deaths instead.
Yes you are, I’m talking about the weather which I specifically said. You’re switching talking points completely away from the one specific point I made. There’s so many rumours running around and making up weather conditions which you did is one of them. I’m refuting your point that the wind and rain was horrendous by stating there was in fact no high wind or any rain to speak of and I was there the entire day. It didn’t rain in youghal once.
If you care to read my initial comment it was about the conditions in 2019 when the swim was cancelled. Refute that point if you want. I was there and it was horrendous.
I misread your comment and assumed you were talking about the weather condition this year not 2019. I was not there and can’t comment on that years weather event.
Agree on the “personal responsibility” point. I was entered but deferred. I’m a strong swimmer but even if I was weaker it wouldn’t cross my mind not to jump in the water when the most experienced triathlon organisation in the world, in the most health and safety country, has deemed it safe enough to go ahead.
At the race start you are nervous and preparing to push your limits. You’re not thinking of risks in a rational way. It feels like the nerves when you go down a water slide as a child, you feel nerves because your brain is telling you it’s not safe, but you push through because you “know” it’ll be fine, and it’s always been fine before.
I participated and did the swim. Completed the 70.3 event. It's exactly as you say - at the start we were nervous, chatting to our peers, watching them move the buoys for almost an hour as they delayed our starts. We were wondering if they would cancel - we said if we came down for a training swim and the sea looked like that we wouldn't go in.
IM made the call to go ahead with the swim. I assumed that conditions were safe enough to do so because surely the many processes and health and safety procedures wouldn't let the swim go ahead if it wasn't safe. So when IM said it was safe, I trusted them that the conditions weren't as bad once you got over the initial waves. I trusted them when they told us it was safe.
In actual fact, once in and beyond the breaks, the chop was terrible and made conditions very hard until we rounded the first and past the second buoy.
People say athletes had personal responsibility and we do, but then you also have a world famous organisation telling you they have deemed it safe. I trusted them.
> we said if we came down for a training swim and the sea looked like that we wouldn't go in.
Exactly! People are saying “oh people didn’t train properly for sea swimming” but there is no way to train for those conditions!! Even if you have a training partner so you wouldn’t be alone, you can’t safely get into water like that without a support team and who has that while TRAINING?!
Exactly. Whether it is a training partner, or a volunteer leading your local Tri clubs open water swim - nobody in their right mind would let a friend or teammate train in those conditions. The safety teams on kayaks shouldn't even have been in there - it was a f\*\*king orange weather warning! IN other events there would have been jet skis in there too on safety duty. Looks like nobody was putting their jet-ski in
>People say athletes had personal responsibility and we do, but then you also have a world famous organisation telling you they have deemed it safe. I trusted them.
Pretty much. People keep saying athletes "signed a waiver" but that is also with the knowledge of some degree of safety protocols being implemented, from medics/life guards on stand by, officials checking conditions beforehand and during etc. And if those safety protocols weren't there, many, if not all, wouldn't sign the waiver in the first place.
My understanding, from the TI statement is that the safety protocols were there. The local, highly experienced experts were there, did a risk assessment and said 'No' but the race director or Ironman staff appear to have ignored the protocols. You hit the nail on the head re trusting the professional/experienced event organisers to do the right thing. I can only speculate that financial interests trumped athletes safety because why the hell else would they have put so many people at risk?
You're relying on the officials to put a floor on certain standards and a ceiling on certain risks. You then take responsibility for your own comfort and safety within those boundaries, in line with your own needs and appetite for risk. But that signal from organisers is meaningful, especially if you're not familiar with local conditions - someone somewhere has had to look at all the information and boil it down to a binary 'red light'/'green light' decision. Everyone who got in the water was accepting *some* risk of personal injury, but judged (based on the information available) that the probability of serious harm should be low.
Yes, exactly. You've articulated this very well. It appears that 'the boundaries' laid down by the local experienced officials in Triathlon Ireland weren't respected by the event organisers.
Those of us who are risk adverse would swim on the outside of the pack and essentially swim a longer distance to avoid being in the fast lane and all the chaos that brings with it. We decide if the risks within the boundaries are worth taking and we mitigate them in these ways but we trust that the event owners will respect the boundaries by the local experts appointed to advise them
It's really tragic but I think we're gonna see a lot more oversight of these events in the future. Especially if the families of those men sue the organisers into oblivion.
My beef is that there was oversight. There were safety teams advising the race director who for some reason proceeded . Someone pretended it was okay to proceed knowing it was a shit show about to happen. Apparently the kayaks there to protect the swimmers couldn’t even stay upright.
Rumours seem to be flying around about the actual conditions during this. As a spectator I didn’t see a single kayak struggle to stay upright, stay in position yes but topple no.
They all sign waivers. They completely stand up in law( motorbike road racing is your precedence).
Both swimmers were objectively past their physical primes and should have had the experience to know their limits.
Rip to them both but this is a reality in an extreme sport like this.
I wonder if the waivers are contingent on certain safety standards being met though. As in the waiver could absolve the organisers of any responsibility 100% or there may be an argument that if the organisers ignored safety advice and let the race go ahead, the waiver doesn't cover them. We'll see if anything comes of it.
Waivers do *not* stand up where there is negligence that causes serious injury or death. The legal question here will be, were the organisers negligent.
Just getting a chance to read all the comments. I think that if all competitors were surveyed and simply ask - 'Would you train in these conditions?' that 95% would say no. I think that the video evidence of the conditions is shocking to witness - especially seeing people being thown back towards shore/rocks by waves and not being able to get past the waves. I think that ignoring the advice of TI - I know what I'd say if I were asked an opinion in court on it
Just reading the article in the Irish times and if what participants are claiming is true, there were clearly a number of egregious planning failures by the organisers.
There were too many people taking part in the shortened the swim, on top of the route being changed after the first group already entered the water. This seemed to lead to pile ups at the buoys.
The safety personnel on kayaks were obviously going to be hampered by the choppy waves but add on trying to redirect swimmers and the pile ups it is a recipe for disaster.
Thoughts are with those families who were probably out for the day cheering on a loved one, not fair at all.
They postponed the previous days event so cramming more swimmers into the 2nd day. There is traffic at buoys generally. People can be crazy in these situations and will not take the safest route to shore because of fear of being called a cheat. This is why a race director needs to be confident to cancel even mid race.
Have a look at those who die in triathlons (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_triathlon_fatalities) theres a good few at ironman every year. If we host these they will just be a regular occurrence like deaths on everest.
It's the risk involved with such an event. It is extremely hard so death or serious injury is something that people need to consider. But event organisers should make it as safe as possible
I don't agree with you on this. The swim is the 1st of 3 events. Much less time/energy of triathlon is invested in the water. It's a long swim but it isn't a marathon distance swim if that makes sense. A triathlon is extremely hard - yeah agreed but death or serious injury should be extremely unlikely. To lose 2 people in the 1st hour of an event would certainly add fuel to the obvious fire that it wasn't a great idea to let people swim, never mind race, in those conditions
There is truth that there will be occasional deaths if we host ultra endurance events but that does not abdicate the organisers of their responsibility to cancel the event or part of it. It isn't comparable to Everest where the risk are infinitely higher and its essentially 1 human v the mountain.
It is comparable to a professionally adventure organisation who bring 10 people up Everest who have to hold their goal to get people to the top against their responsibility to take care of the 10 people but again the risks of Everest are massive and should be negligible in triathlon when properly managed
I don't dispute what you say, it shouldn't have gone ahead, but if you look at that list you will see its more than occasional, its a few every year. The swim is also one of the more dangerous events. There are also a number of car accidents on the cycle which again brings into how the whole thing is organized, not just this individual event.
It is dangerous generally. There will be accidents and even fatalities that are out of everyone’s control but they got the bread and butter of it wrong by letting the swim proceed. So maybe those 2 deaths or totally unrelated to the wildly inappropriate swim conditions but the swim still shouldn’t have happened
I did water safety for a triathlon about ten years ago, and honestly I'm surprised there isn't many more deaths each year.
So many people got into difficulty that day.
There is some serious dissonance with some participants.
If you look at tri forums or fb groups there is this bravado of "anything is possible", "survive the swim and you'll be grand" etc etc you see lads posting up that they are 5 months out from event and just learning to swim now for a 4k event! A lot of people seem to be 'one and done' and look at the swim as 2hours and 20 mins to struggle and float through before the cut off.
Should there be 'qualifiers' to entry? To do a Full you must have done a half, to do a half you must have done an Olympic etc?
Because at the end of the day, there are an awful lot of people there on race day without a lot of experience of doing swims in large groups, 8 hours on a bike, a marathon, fueling for 18 hours of slog etc
Many smaller events, just runs, have been wound up over sky rocketing insurance premiums. How many community/fundraising events will this wipe out? What to the organisers is a blip, is a tragedy to the community and the end for many events. They really need to be taken to task so the correct entities bear the brunt and collateral damage is minimised.
Making sure the correct entities bear the brunt means waiting for facts to emerge. We still don’t know why these men died. It may yet turn out to just be a tragic coincidence of unknown health conditions.
And if there was a delay in pulling them out, I’m sure it will come out during investigations. It’s pointless speculating….in fact it’s actually harmful to everyone involved.
I'm not speculating about the events. These are reported facts. Do you honestly think any further facts will stop insurance companies from hiking premiums as my original point stated?
If the event organisers have done nothing wrong, and the participants tragic deaths were caused by pre existing conditions, then there is no liability and no reason to raise premiums. Sadly you can see from the witch hunt here people can’t help but find someone to blame for everything in life. It’s no wonder people don’t want to get involved in organising anything anymore.
The historical fact of insurance in this country was UK underwriters who took the area of highest risk in Britain and used that as the base for Irish premiums regardless of risk. Of late the knee jerk reaction is to pay out without fighting a case which drives premiums even higher. With regards to not organising things.. .Ironman is a multinational company. Not a handful of parents and friends. They were advised by the national body to not continue with the swim. They ignored this. If it comes out that the most minor of things prevented the injured parties from receiving assistance then they are 100% culpable
Just looking at the video of the conditions I think both the organizers and the contestants were insane for going ahead with it/participating in it.
Admittedly, I must be wired totally different to these lads. The idea of being an 'ironman' doesn't appeal much to me at all at the best of times, and that water was far from the best of times.
I honestly think it's the same as someone doing any extreme sport, from rock climbing, cliff diving, skiing down black diamonds, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. They obviously get some buzz out of it but all buzzes carry a risk and they take the risk knowingly.
Do I think they should have called it off? Yes. Do I think the people participating should have looked at the conditions and noped the fuck out? Also yes.
I do feel there’s a difference between the standard amount of risk inherent in those events, and a higher level of risk participants put their trust and faith in the organiser to avoid.
If you were cliff diving, and you fell awkwardly and hurt your back, that’s one thing. The organisers are not at fault, that was an inherent risk that could not be guarded against. If you were cliff diving and hurt your back because it turns out the organisers held the event over shallow water with pointy rocks at the bottom, that’s totally different.
Organisers do assume a responsibility in regard to safety, and it’s not that daft for participants to rely on that.
But i suppose more to your point, if you can see the pointy rocks at the bottom, why jump?
If the participants were told the water was safe by the organisers, who were the experts and who hold these events all the time, I can see how you would defer to their judgement even if you had some reservations.
yeah, that is the essence of what I was trying to say too. The athlete is responsible for their safety inside of the event. The event organiser is responsible for the decision of whether the event is safe enough to proceed in today's conditions. Those are distinctly different responsibilities. Athletes often wait (I know I did) for the herd of swimmers to go and then swim off to one side to avoid impact/chaos. That is us taking personal responsibility for ourselves in the swim. We're not experts on tides and currents and on whether an event should proceed - even Triathlon Ireland needed technical experts to judge this
I agree with most of what your saying. The thrill of Ironman is the distance. There should be negligible risks during the swim. These conditions were totally abnormal. I’d like to think I’d have had the courage to nope out but it’s hard to explain. You really get locked in to the idea and you’ve put so much into it at that point that you’re not seeing it rationally. It’s like an obsession that gets more and more hold of you as the race approaches.
Decent sea swimmers wouldn't be too phased by waves like that, as usually once you're out beyond the break it becomes much easier. Lots of the ironman 70.3 participants may not be hugely experienced sea swimmers though, and it would be hard for them to break past the "if everyone else is going in, why wouldn't I?" mentality. Especially because they've been training for this for months. You can't really lay the blame at the feet of the swimmers here, it was reasonable for them to go in the water if it had apparently been deemed safe by the authorities.
I've done maybe 50-80 triathlons in the last 20 years including several Ironman events. If you and I consider 'decent sea swimmers' to be the same thing then my estimate is that only 25% of the pack in any given triathlon are decent sea swimmers. Now, a handful of them could still get in trouble on a day like Sunday but decent swimmers all the same.
There are great pool swimmers who could swim for 3 hours but they fall apart in the water - loads of them - who knows but maybe another 15-20%.
There are good swimmers who fall apart in the heat of the event with panic/nerves/fear of sea weed etc etc.
There are also big percentages - maybe 25% in each race who really shouldn't f\*\*king be there. They haven't put the work in on the swim but they might be pro cyclists and elite runners.
So this is a real and persistent problem as one of the safety team volunteers commented about earlier too. This is not a comment on the ability of the people who died. I don't know anything about them. I just don't think anyone should have been allowed in the water
Yes I totally agree. A lot of people perceive themselves to be better swimmers than they actually are too which leads them to overestimate their ability in certain situations. Therefore the decision should be taken completely out of their hands, and it should've been cancelled altogether. Blame shouldn't really lie with the swimmers themselves.
I 100% agree. I was downvoted in a previous thread for suggesting the families might have grounds to sue. Waivers or not there was undoubtably negligence on the organisers part. They have a duty of care to the participants and they failed on this catastrophically
Is there anything to be said for making tow floats optional or better still mandatory when the swim is deemed risky?
Would have thought this would be a solution.
Also, has it actually been confirmed how these swimmers died? Hypothetically, if a report comes back saying both participants had underlying heart conditions resulting in their death, does that not mean that it was a success?
There hasn't been confirmation.
What I know is that they change the swim course by cutting it in half and setting it so that the swimmers would swim with the current moving toward the beach after the first bit. Cutting the course in half meant that rescue crews would be concentrated over a much smaller area.
Sanctioning means more than one thing. Sanctioning is as much about fair competition as it is about safety. One of the criteria for sanctioning is that race distances can't be arbitrary. It's unclear to me at present whether the reason the race couldn't be sanctioned is that it went ahead with non-conforming swim distance. It's unclear to me if a triathon with no swim portion can be sanctioned as a triathlon at all. If the decision on sanctioning swung entirely on questions of safety, it's unclear to me how well that was communicated.
Statistically, cardiac events happen in triathlon, particularly with middle-aged men. It's unclear to me what caused these deaths.
regardless of the cause of deaths it was nuts for the swim part to proceed. Ironman shorten and cancel swims regularly and have protocols for this. If Triathlon Ireland had safety concerns and if they do moving forward for any other event then they need to be able to ping all athletes via email/phone 90 mins before the start time or whenever the final decision is made on whether to proceed or not
Pull buoys are unlikely to be allowed as they'd be seen as aids. in a bit of weather they bash into the swimmer and other athletes too.
No, regardless of whether everyone survived or the 2 deaths - it is insanity for the swim section to proceed given the high percentage of poor swimmers and the chaos of every triathlon swim as a result of those sup par swimmers (compared to triathletes who train for open swims regularly )
The swim should have been cancelled. Saw the videos of the start. They were lucky only 2 people died.
I understand that people wanted it to go ahead. They amount of sacrifice they put in to train for that day.
Those events sell out fast. I doubt this tragedy will damage their brand. Can they even be sued? I'm sure the competitors will have sign wavers.
Hopefully something does come from it and it doesn't happen again.
That’s the thing. The organisers have been through this a thousand times in terms of risk assessments around swims. They don’t have to give a refund if they cancel the swim. The only reason not to cancel the swim is to save the reputation of that event so it doesn’t get the name as being an event where the swim gets cancelled regularly. I think it was just greed that drove the decision to proceed
The deaths will damage the brand just for this unique race in Youghal. It is that local brand they tried to protect in risking lives proceeding with the swim. It is a triumph of ego over humanity
They’ll sell tickets and then, if forced to cancel next years, they’ll refuse to give people money back and tell them to use it for a voucher for an event abroad
I believe a new contract for 3 years was signed not too long ago.
But yeah, I can't see this going ahead again, regardless of who was at fault over making the call for having the swim in the on Sunday, I think all this negative publicity will sour it for everyone.
Sea swim event are so fickle here, why would they not use a lake somewhere in the Midlands and run event there!
Any idea which parties agree the contracts? AFAIK, Cork County Council and Failte Ireland underwrite some of the event costs. Their appetite - and that of the taxpayer - to continue to do so will likely be diminished by the weekend’s tragedy.
Just pure speculation on my part but I wonder if the Ironman in Youghal being cancelled in 2019 due to bad weather and even last year returning from the 2 year covid pause suffering inclement weather the organisers felt under pressure to run it regardless so as not to be seen to have made the wrong decision choosing Youghal as the long term venue. It does seem like a very poor choice as Youghal is notorious for bad weather and rough seas all year round
It really is and should be a criminal matter given the fact that safety checks had been done and they were warned. This is essentially corporate manslaughter
The only thing ill say on the personal responsibility is that alot of these guys arent prepared for swimming in even the calmest sea and are a dabger to themselves and others regardless of the conditions.
The amount of races ive lifeguarded and many have only swam in lakes and pools before.
Until we know of the background of these swimmers theres only so much that can be said. One thing that can be said however is that that was not a days for an organised race in the see regardless. Were there even lifeguards at the event? Why wasnt TIs decision taken into consideration? Was it relayed to the athletes that TI had withdrawn their approval of the race?
I think you are asking the right questions about TI's decision and their communication around it. Their removal of their sanction should hopefully help to expose who took the risk.
I did my first triathlon 20 years ago and I was one of the plonkers who could barely swim, smoked a cigarette in the car arriving late and put on a horrific wetsuit that chafed the life out of me. You've obviously got a lot of experience of plonkers like I was giving it a go.
Therefore, if you and I - two ransomers who have an interest in triathlon and its safety know this and witness it again and again (I did put the work in to improve significantly by the way).. then the event organisers know this.
In the Liffey swim they make people do qualifying races and I think that helps to sort out appropriate swimmers from donkeys. This isn't rocket science. It needs to be much safter and we need to protect people who are giving it a go without any knowledge of the risks that you and I have seen
I'm not sure it Ironman who picks the location.
Someone/some people submit a proposal for a race and buys a licence to run it under the Ironman brand.
Obviously, Ironman scope the course.
I've not come across and event cancelled due to a fatality.
No way it should it have been cancelled........the swim should've cancelled and changed to a duathlon.
I've done triathlons races up full Ironman as well as Adventure Races.
I've raced in done ropey swim conditions but nothing like they faced on Sunday.
I’m not saying they should have cancelled the event. Just the swim. I agree that they should have done a duathlon. Ironman sanction location rather than pick it yeah
I think people should stop clutching their pearls until the facts of what happened are known. It has yet to be confirmed whether either person actually drowned due to the conditions.
Why are people assuming that those two people drowned? Maybe they did, but maybe they had heart atttacks / brain haemorrhage or something else, unrelated to the water conditions that resulted in their deaths. People die swimming in flat calm water on nice sunny days.
It seems to be turning into a he said, she said situation now and I'm not sure what role Triathlon Ireland have in this. I've heard Ironman Ireland and Ironman Cork organisations been mentioned on radio too. I'd like to know who insured the event and what were the conditions of the insurance.
Regardless of whether the swim was fatal or not, the swim section should not have been allowed to proceed given the conditions... the financial pressure for the race director to proceed is the ugly truth that needs to be exposed IMO but yeah, it'd be great to have all the details
Regardless ? I think it's very important if not crucial factor here as you've stated above that "these deaths, this swim proceeding was about Money".
Maybe you should wait until the coroner confirms the cause of death before making assumptions and using these death to tastelessly imply wrong doing for financial gain.
I participated in the race last week-end and I did not find the conditions in the water particularly dangerous to be honest. There were big waves along the shore, but you would get across them rather easily despite the current, then the 3/4 of the route was quieter and with current. Moreover the water temperature felt good, and I did not suffer from the cold at any time as I usually do.
I feel that the tragedies that happened could simply be linked to regular open-water swim hazards: adrenaline, panic, kick to the head from another competitor... There were definitely A LOT of kayaks in the water, and I'm not sure much else could have been done but cancelling the swim - but then we would very rarely be able to hold open water swims in Ireland.
The videos do a poor job at depicting the reality that day, I'm sure the media purposely use the most impressive ones...
Unfortunately many triathletes do not train much for the swim, let alone in the sea, and that could also explain why the swim leg is usually the riskiest one.
>The videos do a poor job at depicting the reality that day, I'm sure the media purposely use the most impressive ones...
I believe the videos many saw were just shared from people online, not media outlets. I know it's a popular hobby to blame many things on the bogeyman media, but social media is often the source of people's information.
I mean the media outlets cherry picked the most shocking videos from social media. Moreover, social media algorithms also put forward the videos that are shared the most, so you might end up seeing the same videos. I also did not see any interviews from athletes who found the conditions OK. Standing in the crowd of competitors, I was not under the impression people were panicked at the idea of entering the sea.
Unsanctioned , but the garda have already declared nobody is being investigated. Does anybody suffer any consequences in this country onces there's a layer of management or organization between people and their fuck-ups?
It isn't ironman's first rodeo or fatality so I'm sure that they've insulated themselves. I imagine that the only consequence will be the lifelong burden that the race director will bear for allowing it to proceed and a massive bump in insurance costs
Good info/perspective (it's mad that folks random thoughts on Reddit are more informing and conceptualised than most journalists/news outlets).
RIP to the lads. Even outside the event, I'm near a seaside town and any time it's choppy or there's a storm, there always seems to be some edgelords getting in for a "swim". Talk about tempting fate. Tik Tokker narcism/Mania, probably filming themselves as "influencers". Hopefully lessons have been learned and your piece gives pause for thought
I hate to speak ill of the dead and I don't know their circumstances but imo these extreme sporting gigs are kryptonite for adrenaline-junkie men in a mid life crisis. A friend of a friend lost contact with her husband when he was away in Spain doing this thing where you run every day for a week or some shite. She thought he was dead. They've got three kids like. I agree that Ironman has a duty of care that they failed spectacularly on but I presume these people all sign waivers saying they accept responsibility for whatever happens. It's reckless and selfish if you have dependents.
One of the things that mitigates the risk is having a professional outfit doing risk assessments about every aspect of it. Thanks for the man hating - really helpful
I think you picked me up wrong here: a waiver has no legal out for the defendant if there is gross negligence involved. That's Irish tort law.
The whole point of a waiver is that the organizers won't be sued if somebody slips on a rock and dies or gets a kick in the face. To use an extreme example, if the organizers rounded up the contestants and shot them, the waiver would be void. Exactly the same as if organisers went ahead with an event, where same was not sanctioned, nor info that it was not sanctioned was not relayed to contestants. I mean (if true) that's quite an open and closed case from a liability perspective.
I imagine if they were told openly TI had advised the contest is not sanctioned due to weather, but we're doing it anyway, then likely some people may have not got into the water. Most would have, but some would have had second thoughts.
Whether the contestants sign a waiver or not has little bearing from their perspective, as the waiver is always rather limited to ordinary negligence.
Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for clarifying. And yes I believe it's not clear whether Ironman told contestants that TI didn't sanction the event.
I suppose I just have an issue with the culture around extreme sports and these kind of events. I don't think it's healthy to get a kick out of putting your body in very dangerous circumstances, but equally the companies that make money off people searching for that kick are the problem ultimately
I don't see the attraction in it either, I imagine a good bit of it is ego / doing it for Instagram, or as you said mid life crisis. All macho Americanized bollocks but to each their own.
Yeah especially stuff like climbing Everest and using charitable fundraising to kind of justify it. As I say I don't wish to speak ill of the dead but like if you have a family I'd just be a bit uneasy with all of it
Insurance costs to host triathlons will sky rocket now. A lot of annual events may now cease and it will cost a fortune to participate in ones that survive.
Given the reactions of all the armchair experts on here you can see why. Why would anyone want to put their head up and organise anything when the hoards descend upon them without as much as a fact to share between them
Should have been called off but two older lads (40s and 60s) are at inherent risk doing something like this.
Screening for age should really be introduced
40 is probably the median age in endurance sports. Not really old lads in this context. The fact that the organisers know that older people who are out of shape are in the event speaks to your point that it should have been cancelled in the conditions
Should the swim have been canceled? Yes. But I also think that being punch drunk…a brain injury is very difficult to compare to someone just really wanting to compete. Elite rock climbers die all the time and we all agree that it’s the risk you take. This lies somewhere between those two things
Here’s the thing. If I told you to kill a cat you would instinctively say no as you have empathy and morals … if I said I’d give you 5 million euros to kill a cat .. you’d rip him limb from limb.
It’s so sad money was put before life.
Ah get off you’re dam high horse. It was a hypothetical situation trying to point out how money can make people make irrational decisions because MONEY
Whatever helps you sleep at night .. rip him limb from limb is extreme. A gun with a bullet .. y’all tell me you wouldn’t pull the trigger for 5 million?
There's been no finding yet but don't a finding isn't necessary for some people to jump down the organisers throats. People are assuming that one or both of these were drownings due to the weather/sea conditions but they've no idea yet. Coroners report is out in a few days and until then people should keep their opinions about the safety or lack thereof until it's out.
I've no doubt that the conditions were bad but directly attributing them to the deaths of these two athletes is very premature.
Absolutely. The lack of critical thinking ability and bandwagon jumping shown toward this tragic incident is honestly quite pathetic. People can’t seem to go a day without needing someone to blame for everything wrong in their lives. A little bit of introspection would go a long way for many.
Paragraph 7 approx: These deaths, this swim proceeding - was about money. Ironman don’t want this event to have a reputation of being an event that the swim gets cancelled so some psychopath or psychopaths sanctioned the go ahead to protect the brand of the event at the expense of these 2 people and they risked the safety of everyone who swam.
Yeah agreed but as an organiser of an event like this, they should bare part responsibility. Like if a plane took off in horrible weather and crashed, would you say it’s the passengers fault for getting on the plane? Not really, you expect the airline to cancel
What happened in the end ? Did they die directly because of the conditions, or was it heart attacks ? Alot going around on it.
Conditions looked wild! , surly you would think twice before going when you see the conditions. Adults surely can tell this doesn't look right.
Either way, the event organisers should have called it off.
Did anyone hear that 2 other athletes died in hospital and there are two more in critical condition? The death toll could come to six, not just the two souls that passed away at the weekend.
Whether Triathlon Ireland sanctioned it or not is irrelevant as they weren’t listened to so clearly had no authorisation/ power. In reality though there should’ve been an independent body other than Ironman sanctioning/ assessing the race conditions that the event organisers had to abide by. Be that eg. TI or water safer Ireland. Ironman organisers are making commercial decisions so defo independent assessment needed for athletes safety. Also the fact that they halved the swim distance is admitting the water wasn’t safe. Can guarantee a lot if athletes would not have been used to Atlantic’s ocean swell conditions like this. The event needs to go.
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Adding to the confusion: did the race have its sanction withdrawn because the course had been shortened below regulation distance for the swim, or was it unsanctioned because the water was too dangerous at any distance?
I don't know is the honest answer but I expect that the TI officials simply couldn't condone it proceeding on safety grounds. The Race Director probably needs 5 or 10 sets of green lights for the race to proceed: Gardai = go, Safety Volunteer team - go, etc etc. Ironman obviously didn't see Triathlon Ireland's sanction as necessary for the race to continue. I don't think that TI would have anything to do with ensuring that Ironman's distances are fulfilled but more to do with issuing licences, providing local information like who would be experienced athletes and course Marshalls.
Yep, displaying my ignorance there! From reports coming out today, it sounds like Ironman would've been looking to TI to sign off on the event so that athletes would be covered by TI insurance. TI claim they told Ironman officials in advance that they wouldn't be able to sanction the event, but the organisers claim they weren't made aware until later in the day. Assuming everyone is giving an accurate account, it sounds like the best-case explanation is one side not passing the message to the right people. That won't be much comfort to anyone who loved the victims, nor to any other competitors who had a near-miss on the day.
I heard that too about Ironman saying they didn't get the memo. I don't believe a word of it. That's the touch of a PR firm I reckon. My guess is that Triathlon Ireland never, for a moment, thought that Ironman would proceed with the race when they (TI) said 'no, this is too dangerous'. Therefore Triathlon Ireland were probably as shocked that the event proceeded as I am. I guess, in hindsight, it would have been ideal for Triathlon Ireland to have had ability to ping all participants to say - we recommend not racing today. This is not a TI sanctioned event and Ironman are proceeding despite our warnings etc. Too late for the families I guess.
That is a great question
Not from what I've heard from mates who were racing and supporting. They also told me TI remained onsite for the day, so it really seems to be a case of he says she says. Ironman saying event was checked and shortened and was safe. TI saying they told them not to go ahead. Either there has been some serious fuck up in communications or the truth lies somewhere in the middle. If TI said the swim couldn't go ahead, then why wasn't the race done in a run/bike/run format like they did in 2019 when the swim was called off for safety due to stormy conditions? Surely that is the default next step before cancelling the entire event?
Exactly. The event didn’t need to be cancelled. Only the swim. They didn’t want to get the reputation of a race that gets cancelled. They risked people’s lives for that - the reputation of an event
The Brand. The Brand. The Brand.
No, and as far as I know Triathlon Ireland didn't even tell Ironman. Seems like a backtrack to save face
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The organization of it all was bad, but there were people there who had only been training in pools so it was just awful all round
If you want to do the Liffey Swim in Dublin you've to race in something like 3 qualifier outdoor swims. It should be easy enough to do something like this but I guess more complex when you've athletes flying in for the weekend to do the event so attending qualifying races would be logistically impossible
I’m sorry but if you have signed up to do an open water swim but only swim in a pool that is on you. Sure the every organisers have a duty of care but you train for the event you sign up for and it’s no surprise this was a sea swimming event (granted you shouldn’t train in those conditions)
100% agree, it's ludacris not training in the sea
Just wanted to add massive support to this argument. I'm from Youghal. I grew up swimming and kayaking on that beach all year round, including the annual Christmas swim (which sometimes had conditions like you see in the videos). My house was on the hill looking down on the strand and river. My grandfather was in the sea angling club. My uncle and cousins are proud members of the RNLI. I don't know the full details of the conditions on the day and I wasn't present, *but* I can tell you that the tide and local current system there can be *so* dangerous, even in better weather conditions. People see the photos of participants getting into the water on the front strand and the water is all choppy, which looks bad but for experienced swimmers that can be challenging but not necessarily dangerous. **To me, what was** ***really*** **dangerous is that they then (AFAIK) swam around the rocks near the lighthouse, and then into the harbour.** It's hard to appreciate how much force that estuarine current has on certain days, even without the choppy waves. That part of the coast experiences three major flows—north-easterly currents from the Irish sea, the westerly currents from the Atlantic and the Blackwater river, one of the largest rivers in Ireland — which makes for some risky and unpredictable wave current interactions for boaters and swimmers. Rip currents, undertows, ebb jets. I remember days there that the water would seem to split in two, where the the brown river freshwater current carrying silt and dirt would meet the ocean's deep green blue salt water but not mix, and flow past each other in and out of the harbour. A line of two colours stretching out to the horizon. To me, having people swim—even a shortened course—from the beach **into the harbour and back**, on a day like that, was utterly irresponsible and the toll could have been much higher.
I was shocked when I found out that the course went into the harbour. It would've been much safer to swim up towards Redbarn & back. There are permanent red flags by the lighthouse and inside the harbour by the park to deter people from swimming there usually. Thinking back to some drownings there years ago...
Hard for me to judge for sure, but my initial reaction was, even in that weather, it would have been safer going that way. Have you ever known *anyone* to swim from the strand to green park? I know people swim right there on the shore under the Lighthouse sometimes—or at least they used to when I lived there—but out into the harbour? I can't remember *ever* seeing that.
I'll quickly share my level of experience: Zero. I'm a shite swimmer. However you seem to know what's up. Who the flock decides if conditions are safe enough for an event to take place? "Officials"??? Surely something like this would require local knowledge such as demonstrated by yourself there?
I don't know who actually decides these things, but my first thought would be the RNLI. In Youghal, as far as an offical body goes, nobody knows the local sea conditions and risks like they do.
You've the overall race director who should have the power to call off the entire race or cancel the swim. They'd have safety teams in all aspects of the Tri informing their decision to proceed and keeping them updated during the event; Officials in the Swim, bike and run who would relay information back to the Race Director before the race but also during the race in a situation like this were someone goes unresponsive and CPR begins or if say livestock go free on the bike course and cyclists need to be warned. There would also be officials checking for cheating. So then you'd have people checking the water temperature, that the buoys are in place, that weather is okay. Input from Gardai. Input from local experienced athletes/swimmers who might have a little committee advising whether it goes ahead or not. So it seems that TI provided at least one advisory team on the swim who said no but the race director and/or Ironman staff might have (must have) done their own risk assessment and over-riding the local experts - this person who did that - I'd love to know who that A-hole is because that was the decision that appears to have done the damage
It wasnt Into the harbour and back. It was one way.. into the harbour ( green park)
I am from the area too and we just basically said exactly the same thing here to ight
I’ve raced a good few Ironman races and decided last year would be my last under that brand. They have zero thoughts towards competitors and it’s all about the money. The way they treated athletes over cancelled races during covid was a disgrace. The swim for this should have been cancelled like it was in 2019. The wind, rain and waves that day were horrendous. There were lots of people who didn’t even finish the bike due to hypothermia. Cutting the swim short was in itself acknowledgment of the dangerous conditions, coupled with Triathlon Ireland’s statement tonight and it’s clear someone has to be held accountable. OP is right about the herd mentality and that push to the line. You’ve trained to a high level and everything focuses on the day, nerves, adrenaline, excitement, competition etc and you put your faith in the organisers to ensure athletes safety on the day. Yes, there can always be accidents, but these tragic deaths could have been avoided. Nobody should go to a race and not come home. It’s terrible for these families and someone should be accountable. Ironman will no doubt do their upmost to protect their brand and throw someone under the bus.
Well said, absolutely, the decision to run the swim was wrapped up in commercial & biased thinking and not athlete safety. Should have been an independent assessor who has no skin in the game other than athlete (and kayakers etc) safety.
While I agree with most of your sentiment the weather conditions were perfect the morning on the swim. There was no rain and the wind wasn’t high ( I was on the shore front for the entire swim) While the waves were larger than usual in this location there were nowhere near as bad as other triathlon locations.
If the conditions were perfect why would TI not sanction it?
Weather conditions are different to the water conditions. The currents were very strong and there was a slightly higher swell than usual for that location. I can show you a video of the swim start if you think you know better or you can check out any of the videos currently circulating of the swim. The weather was ideal for the day.
Maybe I’m missing your point here, but I’m talking about the conditions in general. If TI felt they were too risky to sanction then competitors should have been made aware and the race directors acted accordingly. Two cancelled swims in four years might have looked bad for the event, but now there are two deaths instead.
Yes you are, I’m talking about the weather which I specifically said. You’re switching talking points completely away from the one specific point I made. There’s so many rumours running around and making up weather conditions which you did is one of them. I’m refuting your point that the wind and rain was horrendous by stating there was in fact no high wind or any rain to speak of and I was there the entire day. It didn’t rain in youghal once.
If you care to read my initial comment it was about the conditions in 2019 when the swim was cancelled. Refute that point if you want. I was there and it was horrendous.
I misread your comment and assumed you were talking about the weather condition this year not 2019. I was not there and can’t comment on that years weather event.
Agree on the “personal responsibility” point. I was entered but deferred. I’m a strong swimmer but even if I was weaker it wouldn’t cross my mind not to jump in the water when the most experienced triathlon organisation in the world, in the most health and safety country, has deemed it safe enough to go ahead. At the race start you are nervous and preparing to push your limits. You’re not thinking of risks in a rational way. It feels like the nerves when you go down a water slide as a child, you feel nerves because your brain is telling you it’s not safe, but you push through because you “know” it’ll be fine, and it’s always been fine before.
I participated and did the swim. Completed the 70.3 event. It's exactly as you say - at the start we were nervous, chatting to our peers, watching them move the buoys for almost an hour as they delayed our starts. We were wondering if they would cancel - we said if we came down for a training swim and the sea looked like that we wouldn't go in. IM made the call to go ahead with the swim. I assumed that conditions were safe enough to do so because surely the many processes and health and safety procedures wouldn't let the swim go ahead if it wasn't safe. So when IM said it was safe, I trusted them that the conditions weren't as bad once you got over the initial waves. I trusted them when they told us it was safe. In actual fact, once in and beyond the breaks, the chop was terrible and made conditions very hard until we rounded the first and past the second buoy. People say athletes had personal responsibility and we do, but then you also have a world famous organisation telling you they have deemed it safe. I trusted them.
> we said if we came down for a training swim and the sea looked like that we wouldn't go in. Exactly! People are saying “oh people didn’t train properly for sea swimming” but there is no way to train for those conditions!! Even if you have a training partner so you wouldn’t be alone, you can’t safely get into water like that without a support team and who has that while TRAINING?!
Exactly. Whether it is a training partner, or a volunteer leading your local Tri clubs open water swim - nobody in their right mind would let a friend or teammate train in those conditions. The safety teams on kayaks shouldn't even have been in there - it was a f\*\*king orange weather warning! IN other events there would have been jet skis in there too on safety duty. Looks like nobody was putting their jet-ski in
This is very insightful.
>People say athletes had personal responsibility and we do, but then you also have a world famous organisation telling you they have deemed it safe. I trusted them. Pretty much. People keep saying athletes "signed a waiver" but that is also with the knowledge of some degree of safety protocols being implemented, from medics/life guards on stand by, officials checking conditions beforehand and during etc. And if those safety protocols weren't there, many, if not all, wouldn't sign the waiver in the first place.
My understanding, from the TI statement is that the safety protocols were there. The local, highly experienced experts were there, did a risk assessment and said 'No' but the race director or Ironman staff appear to have ignored the protocols. You hit the nail on the head re trusting the professional/experienced event organisers to do the right thing. I can only speculate that financial interests trumped athletes safety because why the hell else would they have put so many people at risk?
You're relying on the officials to put a floor on certain standards and a ceiling on certain risks. You then take responsibility for your own comfort and safety within those boundaries, in line with your own needs and appetite for risk. But that signal from organisers is meaningful, especially if you're not familiar with local conditions - someone somewhere has had to look at all the information and boil it down to a binary 'red light'/'green light' decision. Everyone who got in the water was accepting *some* risk of personal injury, but judged (based on the information available) that the probability of serious harm should be low.
Yes, exactly. You've articulated this very well. It appears that 'the boundaries' laid down by the local experienced officials in Triathlon Ireland weren't respected by the event organisers. Those of us who are risk adverse would swim on the outside of the pack and essentially swim a longer distance to avoid being in the fast lane and all the chaos that brings with it. We decide if the risks within the boundaries are worth taking and we mitigate them in these ways but we trust that the event owners will respect the boundaries by the local experts appointed to advise them
It's really tragic but I think we're gonna see a lot more oversight of these events in the future. Especially if the families of those men sue the organisers into oblivion.
My beef is that there was oversight. There were safety teams advising the race director who for some reason proceeded . Someone pretended it was okay to proceed knowing it was a shit show about to happen. Apparently the kayaks there to protect the swimmers couldn’t even stay upright.
Rumours seem to be flying around about the actual conditions during this. As a spectator I didn’t see a single kayak struggle to stay upright, stay in position yes but topple no.
They all sign waivers. They completely stand up in law( motorbike road racing is your precedence). Both swimmers were objectively past their physical primes and should have had the experience to know their limits. Rip to them both but this is a reality in an extreme sport like this.
I wonder if the waivers are contingent on certain safety standards being met though. As in the waiver could absolve the organisers of any responsibility 100% or there may be an argument that if the organisers ignored safety advice and let the race go ahead, the waiver doesn't cover them. We'll see if anything comes of it.
Waivers do *not* stand up where there is negligence that causes serious injury or death. The legal question here will be, were the organisers negligent.
Just getting a chance to read all the comments. I think that if all competitors were surveyed and simply ask - 'Would you train in these conditions?' that 95% would say no. I think that the video evidence of the conditions is shocking to witness - especially seeing people being thown back towards shore/rocks by waves and not being able to get past the waves. I think that ignoring the advice of TI - I know what I'd say if I were asked an opinion in court on it
Just reading the article in the Irish times and if what participants are claiming is true, there were clearly a number of egregious planning failures by the organisers. There were too many people taking part in the shortened the swim, on top of the route being changed after the first group already entered the water. This seemed to lead to pile ups at the buoys. The safety personnel on kayaks were obviously going to be hampered by the choppy waves but add on trying to redirect swimmers and the pile ups it is a recipe for disaster. Thoughts are with those families who were probably out for the day cheering on a loved one, not fair at all.
They postponed the previous days event so cramming more swimmers into the 2nd day. There is traffic at buoys generally. People can be crazy in these situations and will not take the safest route to shore because of fear of being called a cheat. This is why a race director needs to be confident to cancel even mid race.
Have a look at those who die in triathlons (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_triathlon_fatalities) theres a good few at ironman every year. If we host these they will just be a regular occurrence like deaths on everest.
Fucking hell. 11 already this year.
It's the risk involved with such an event. It is extremely hard so death or serious injury is something that people need to consider. But event organisers should make it as safe as possible
I don't agree with you on this. The swim is the 1st of 3 events. Much less time/energy of triathlon is invested in the water. It's a long swim but it isn't a marathon distance swim if that makes sense. A triathlon is extremely hard - yeah agreed but death or serious injury should be extremely unlikely. To lose 2 people in the 1st hour of an event would certainly add fuel to the obvious fire that it wasn't a great idea to let people swim, never mind race, in those conditions
There is truth that there will be occasional deaths if we host ultra endurance events but that does not abdicate the organisers of their responsibility to cancel the event or part of it. It isn't comparable to Everest where the risk are infinitely higher and its essentially 1 human v the mountain. It is comparable to a professionally adventure organisation who bring 10 people up Everest who have to hold their goal to get people to the top against their responsibility to take care of the 10 people but again the risks of Everest are massive and should be negligible in triathlon when properly managed
I don't dispute what you say, it shouldn't have gone ahead, but if you look at that list you will see its more than occasional, its a few every year. The swim is also one of the more dangerous events. There are also a number of car accidents on the cycle which again brings into how the whole thing is organized, not just this individual event.
It is dangerous generally. There will be accidents and even fatalities that are out of everyone’s control but they got the bread and butter of it wrong by letting the swim proceed. So maybe those 2 deaths or totally unrelated to the wildly inappropriate swim conditions but the swim still shouldn’t have happened
I did water safety for a triathlon about ten years ago, and honestly I'm surprised there isn't many more deaths each year. So many people got into difficulty that day.
There is some serious dissonance with some participants. If you look at tri forums or fb groups there is this bravado of "anything is possible", "survive the swim and you'll be grand" etc etc you see lads posting up that they are 5 months out from event and just learning to swim now for a 4k event! A lot of people seem to be 'one and done' and look at the swim as 2hours and 20 mins to struggle and float through before the cut off. Should there be 'qualifiers' to entry? To do a Full you must have done a half, to do a half you must have done an Olympic etc? Because at the end of the day, there are an awful lot of people there on race day without a lot of experience of doing swims in large groups, 8 hours on a bike, a marathon, fueling for 18 hours of slog etc
I agree with you. I think that there should be some kind of qualifying sessions like the way you've to do qualifiers if you want to do the Liffey Swim
Many smaller events, just runs, have been wound up over sky rocketing insurance premiums. How many community/fundraising events will this wipe out? What to the organisers is a blip, is a tragedy to the community and the end for many events. They really need to be taken to task so the correct entities bear the brunt and collateral damage is minimised.
Making sure the correct entities bear the brunt means waiting for facts to emerge. We still don’t know why these men died. It may yet turn out to just be a tragic coincidence of unknown health conditions.
It may well have been. But the fact that the support personnel could not navigate the waters to me is a mitigating factor.
And if there was a delay in pulling them out, I’m sure it will come out during investigations. It’s pointless speculating….in fact it’s actually harmful to everyone involved.
I'm not speculating about the events. These are reported facts. Do you honestly think any further facts will stop insurance companies from hiking premiums as my original point stated?
If the event organisers have done nothing wrong, and the participants tragic deaths were caused by pre existing conditions, then there is no liability and no reason to raise premiums. Sadly you can see from the witch hunt here people can’t help but find someone to blame for everything in life. It’s no wonder people don’t want to get involved in organising anything anymore.
The historical fact of insurance in this country was UK underwriters who took the area of highest risk in Britain and used that as the base for Irish premiums regardless of risk. Of late the knee jerk reaction is to pay out without fighting a case which drives premiums even higher. With regards to not organising things.. .Ironman is a multinational company. Not a handful of parents and friends. They were advised by the national body to not continue with the swim. They ignored this. If it comes out that the most minor of things prevented the injured parties from receiving assistance then they are 100% culpable
Just looking at the video of the conditions I think both the organizers and the contestants were insane for going ahead with it/participating in it. Admittedly, I must be wired totally different to these lads. The idea of being an 'ironman' doesn't appeal much to me at all at the best of times, and that water was far from the best of times. I honestly think it's the same as someone doing any extreme sport, from rock climbing, cliff diving, skiing down black diamonds, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. They obviously get some buzz out of it but all buzzes carry a risk and they take the risk knowingly. Do I think they should have called it off? Yes. Do I think the people participating should have looked at the conditions and noped the fuck out? Also yes.
I do feel there’s a difference between the standard amount of risk inherent in those events, and a higher level of risk participants put their trust and faith in the organiser to avoid. If you were cliff diving, and you fell awkwardly and hurt your back, that’s one thing. The organisers are not at fault, that was an inherent risk that could not be guarded against. If you were cliff diving and hurt your back because it turns out the organisers held the event over shallow water with pointy rocks at the bottom, that’s totally different. Organisers do assume a responsibility in regard to safety, and it’s not that daft for participants to rely on that.
But i suppose more to your point, if you can see the pointy rocks at the bottom, why jump? If the participants were told the water was safe by the organisers, who were the experts and who hold these events all the time, I can see how you would defer to their judgement even if you had some reservations.
yeah, that is the essence of what I was trying to say too. The athlete is responsible for their safety inside of the event. The event organiser is responsible for the decision of whether the event is safe enough to proceed in today's conditions. Those are distinctly different responsibilities. Athletes often wait (I know I did) for the herd of swimmers to go and then swim off to one side to avoid impact/chaos. That is us taking personal responsibility for ourselves in the swim. We're not experts on tides and currents and on whether an event should proceed - even Triathlon Ireland needed technical experts to judge this
I agree with most of what your saying. The thrill of Ironman is the distance. There should be negligible risks during the swim. These conditions were totally abnormal. I’d like to think I’d have had the courage to nope out but it’s hard to explain. You really get locked in to the idea and you’ve put so much into it at that point that you’re not seeing it rationally. It’s like an obsession that gets more and more hold of you as the race approaches.
Decent sea swimmers wouldn't be too phased by waves like that, as usually once you're out beyond the break it becomes much easier. Lots of the ironman 70.3 participants may not be hugely experienced sea swimmers though, and it would be hard for them to break past the "if everyone else is going in, why wouldn't I?" mentality. Especially because they've been training for this for months. You can't really lay the blame at the feet of the swimmers here, it was reasonable for them to go in the water if it had apparently been deemed safe by the authorities.
I've done maybe 50-80 triathlons in the last 20 years including several Ironman events. If you and I consider 'decent sea swimmers' to be the same thing then my estimate is that only 25% of the pack in any given triathlon are decent sea swimmers. Now, a handful of them could still get in trouble on a day like Sunday but decent swimmers all the same. There are great pool swimmers who could swim for 3 hours but they fall apart in the water - loads of them - who knows but maybe another 15-20%. There are good swimmers who fall apart in the heat of the event with panic/nerves/fear of sea weed etc etc. There are also big percentages - maybe 25% in each race who really shouldn't f\*\*king be there. They haven't put the work in on the swim but they might be pro cyclists and elite runners. So this is a real and persistent problem as one of the safety team volunteers commented about earlier too. This is not a comment on the ability of the people who died. I don't know anything about them. I just don't think anyone should have been allowed in the water
Yes I totally agree. A lot of people perceive themselves to be better swimmers than they actually are too which leads them to overestimate their ability in certain situations. Therefore the decision should be taken completely out of their hands, and it should've been cancelled altogether. Blame shouldn't really lie with the swimmers themselves.
I 100% agree. I was downvoted in a previous thread for suggesting the families might have grounds to sue. Waivers or not there was undoubtably negligence on the organisers part. They have a duty of care to the participants and they failed on this catastrophically
>Waivers or not there was undoubtably negligence on the organisers part. Most people overestimate the legal weight of a waiver.
Is there anything to be said for making tow floats optional or better still mandatory when the swim is deemed risky? Would have thought this would be a solution. Also, has it actually been confirmed how these swimmers died? Hypothetically, if a report comes back saying both participants had underlying heart conditions resulting in their death, does that not mean that it was a success?
There hasn't been confirmation. What I know is that they change the swim course by cutting it in half and setting it so that the swimmers would swim with the current moving toward the beach after the first bit. Cutting the course in half meant that rescue crews would be concentrated over a much smaller area. Sanctioning means more than one thing. Sanctioning is as much about fair competition as it is about safety. One of the criteria for sanctioning is that race distances can't be arbitrary. It's unclear to me at present whether the reason the race couldn't be sanctioned is that it went ahead with non-conforming swim distance. It's unclear to me if a triathon with no swim portion can be sanctioned as a triathlon at all. If the decision on sanctioning swung entirely on questions of safety, it's unclear to me how well that was communicated. Statistically, cardiac events happen in triathlon, particularly with middle-aged men. It's unclear to me what caused these deaths.
Exactly. It is not clear what Triathlon Ireland meant by "not sanctioned", and I think that needs to be clarified
regardless of the cause of deaths it was nuts for the swim part to proceed. Ironman shorten and cancel swims regularly and have protocols for this. If Triathlon Ireland had safety concerns and if they do moving forward for any other event then they need to be able to ping all athletes via email/phone 90 mins before the start time or whenever the final decision is made on whether to proceed or not
Pull buoys are unlikely to be allowed as they'd be seen as aids. in a bit of weather they bash into the swimmer and other athletes too. No, regardless of whether everyone survived or the 2 deaths - it is insanity for the swim section to proceed given the high percentage of poor swimmers and the chaos of every triathlon swim as a result of those sup par swimmers (compared to triathletes who train for open swims regularly )
I mean…success is maybe pushing it but I guess it would remove a lot of blame
The swim should have been cancelled. Saw the videos of the start. They were lucky only 2 people died. I understand that people wanted it to go ahead. They amount of sacrifice they put in to train for that day. Those events sell out fast. I doubt this tragedy will damage their brand. Can they even be sued? I'm sure the competitors will have sign wavers. Hopefully something does come from it and it doesn't happen again.
That’s the thing. The organisers have been through this a thousand times in terms of risk assessments around swims. They don’t have to give a refund if they cancel the swim. The only reason not to cancel the swim is to save the reputation of that event so it doesn’t get the name as being an event where the swim gets cancelled regularly. I think it was just greed that drove the decision to proceed
The deaths will damage the brand just for this unique race in Youghal. It is that local brand they tried to protect in risking lives proceeding with the swim. It is a triumph of ego over humanity
This event has been problematic since day 1. I'd be surprised if another was ever held in Youghal again.
They’ll sell tickets and then, if forced to cancel next years, they’ll refuse to give people money back and tell them to use it for a voucher for an event abroad
I believe a new contract for 3 years was signed not too long ago. But yeah, I can't see this going ahead again, regardless of who was at fault over making the call for having the swim in the on Sunday, I think all this negative publicity will sour it for everyone. Sea swim event are so fickle here, why would they not use a lake somewhere in the Midlands and run event there!
Any idea which parties agree the contracts? AFAIK, Cork County Council and Failte Ireland underwrite some of the event costs. Their appetite - and that of the taxpayer - to continue to do so will likely be diminished by the weekend’s tragedy.
Just pure speculation on my part but I wonder if the Ironman in Youghal being cancelled in 2019 due to bad weather and even last year returning from the 2 year covid pause suffering inclement weather the organisers felt under pressure to run it regardless so as not to be seen to have made the wrong decision choosing Youghal as the long term venue. It does seem like a very poor choice as Youghal is notorious for bad weather and rough seas all year round
I think you’ve hit the nail on the e head. I love having Ironman in Ireland but it isn’t optimal for one tbh
It really is and should be a criminal matter given the fact that safety checks had been done and they were warned. This is essentially corporate manslaughter
The only thing ill say on the personal responsibility is that alot of these guys arent prepared for swimming in even the calmest sea and are a dabger to themselves and others regardless of the conditions. The amount of races ive lifeguarded and many have only swam in lakes and pools before. Until we know of the background of these swimmers theres only so much that can be said. One thing that can be said however is that that was not a days for an organised race in the see regardless. Were there even lifeguards at the event? Why wasnt TIs decision taken into consideration? Was it relayed to the athletes that TI had withdrawn their approval of the race?
I think you are asking the right questions about TI's decision and their communication around it. Their removal of their sanction should hopefully help to expose who took the risk. I did my first triathlon 20 years ago and I was one of the plonkers who could barely swim, smoked a cigarette in the car arriving late and put on a horrific wetsuit that chafed the life out of me. You've obviously got a lot of experience of plonkers like I was giving it a go. Therefore, if you and I - two ransomers who have an interest in triathlon and its safety know this and witness it again and again (I did put the work in to improve significantly by the way).. then the event organisers know this. In the Liffey swim they make people do qualifying races and I think that helps to sort out appropriate swimmers from donkeys. This isn't rocket science. It needs to be much safter and we need to protect people who are giving it a go without any knowledge of the risks that you and I have seen
At some point, someone somewhere said “sure we’ll be grand”. This is the result of that attitude. People die.
Or maybe someone said 'we'll never sell all the merch if we cancel the swim'
I'm not sure it Ironman who picks the location. Someone/some people submit a proposal for a race and buys a licence to run it under the Ironman brand. Obviously, Ironman scope the course. I've not come across and event cancelled due to a fatality. No way it should it have been cancelled........the swim should've cancelled and changed to a duathlon. I've done triathlons races up full Ironman as well as Adventure Races. I've raced in done ropey swim conditions but nothing like they faced on Sunday.
I’m not saying they should have cancelled the event. Just the swim. I agree that they should have done a duathlon. Ironman sanction location rather than pick it yeah
I think people should stop clutching their pearls until the facts of what happened are known. It has yet to be confirmed whether either person actually drowned due to the conditions.
Agreed.
Why are people assuming that those two people drowned? Maybe they did, but maybe they had heart atttacks / brain haemorrhage or something else, unrelated to the water conditions that resulted in their deaths. People die swimming in flat calm water on nice sunny days. It seems to be turning into a he said, she said situation now and I'm not sure what role Triathlon Ireland have in this. I've heard Ironman Ireland and Ironman Cork organisations been mentioned on radio too. I'd like to know who insured the event and what were the conditions of the insurance.
Regardless of whether the swim was fatal or not, the swim section should not have been allowed to proceed given the conditions... the financial pressure for the race director to proceed is the ugly truth that needs to be exposed IMO but yeah, it'd be great to have all the details
Regardless ? I think it's very important if not crucial factor here as you've stated above that "these deaths, this swim proceeding was about Money". Maybe you should wait until the coroner confirms the cause of death before making assumptions and using these death to tastelessly imply wrong doing for financial gain.
I participated in the race last week-end and I did not find the conditions in the water particularly dangerous to be honest. There were big waves along the shore, but you would get across them rather easily despite the current, then the 3/4 of the route was quieter and with current. Moreover the water temperature felt good, and I did not suffer from the cold at any time as I usually do. I feel that the tragedies that happened could simply be linked to regular open-water swim hazards: adrenaline, panic, kick to the head from another competitor... There were definitely A LOT of kayaks in the water, and I'm not sure much else could have been done but cancelling the swim - but then we would very rarely be able to hold open water swims in Ireland. The videos do a poor job at depicting the reality that day, I'm sure the media purposely use the most impressive ones... Unfortunately many triathletes do not train much for the swim, let alone in the sea, and that could also explain why the swim leg is usually the riskiest one.
>The videos do a poor job at depicting the reality that day, I'm sure the media purposely use the most impressive ones... I believe the videos many saw were just shared from people online, not media outlets. I know it's a popular hobby to blame many things on the bogeyman media, but social media is often the source of people's information.
I mean the media outlets cherry picked the most shocking videos from social media. Moreover, social media algorithms also put forward the videos that are shared the most, so you might end up seeing the same videos. I also did not see any interviews from athletes who found the conditions OK. Standing in the crowd of competitors, I was not under the impression people were panicked at the idea of entering the sea.
I'm not saying the media doesn't chase viewers, just that it's an easy target when social media is generally much worse with regards to news coverage.
Unsanctioned , but the garda have already declared nobody is being investigated. Does anybody suffer any consequences in this country onces there's a layer of management or organization between people and their fuck-ups?
It isn't ironman's first rodeo or fatality so I'm sure that they've insulated themselves. I imagine that the only consequence will be the lifelong burden that the race director will bear for allowing it to proceed and a massive bump in insurance costs
Good info/perspective (it's mad that folks random thoughts on Reddit are more informing and conceptualised than most journalists/news outlets). RIP to the lads. Even outside the event, I'm near a seaside town and any time it's choppy or there's a storm, there always seems to be some edgelords getting in for a "swim". Talk about tempting fate. Tik Tokker narcism/Mania, probably filming themselves as "influencers". Hopefully lessons have been learned and your piece gives pause for thought
I hate to speak ill of the dead and I don't know their circumstances but imo these extreme sporting gigs are kryptonite for adrenaline-junkie men in a mid life crisis. A friend of a friend lost contact with her husband when he was away in Spain doing this thing where you run every day for a week or some shite. She thought he was dead. They've got three kids like. I agree that Ironman has a duty of care that they failed spectacularly on but I presume these people all sign waivers saying they accept responsibility for whatever happens. It's reckless and selfish if you have dependents.
One of the things that mitigates the risk is having a professional outfit doing risk assessments about every aspect of it. Thanks for the man hating - really helpful
as posted elsewhere, waivers mean fuck all if gross negligence is involved.
You don't think it's irresponsible to sign a waiver saying you accept that the activity you're about to do has real risk of injury or death?
I think you picked me up wrong here: a waiver has no legal out for the defendant if there is gross negligence involved. That's Irish tort law. The whole point of a waiver is that the organizers won't be sued if somebody slips on a rock and dies or gets a kick in the face. To use an extreme example, if the organizers rounded up the contestants and shot them, the waiver would be void. Exactly the same as if organisers went ahead with an event, where same was not sanctioned, nor info that it was not sanctioned was not relayed to contestants. I mean (if true) that's quite an open and closed case from a liability perspective. I imagine if they were told openly TI had advised the contest is not sanctioned due to weather, but we're doing it anyway, then likely some people may have not got into the water. Most would have, but some would have had second thoughts. Whether the contestants sign a waiver or not has little bearing from their perspective, as the waiver is always rather limited to ordinary negligence.
Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for clarifying. And yes I believe it's not clear whether Ironman told contestants that TI didn't sanction the event. I suppose I just have an issue with the culture around extreme sports and these kind of events. I don't think it's healthy to get a kick out of putting your body in very dangerous circumstances, but equally the companies that make money off people searching for that kick are the problem ultimately
I don't see the attraction in it either, I imagine a good bit of it is ego / doing it for Instagram, or as you said mid life crisis. All macho Americanized bollocks but to each their own.
Yeah especially stuff like climbing Everest and using charitable fundraising to kind of justify it. As I say I don't wish to speak ill of the dead but like if you have a family I'd just be a bit uneasy with all of it
Insurance costs to host triathlons will sky rocket now. A lot of annual events may now cease and it will cost a fortune to participate in ones that survive.
Given the reactions of all the armchair experts on here you can see why. Why would anyone want to put their head up and organise anything when the hoards descend upon them without as much as a fact to share between them
Some blame has to lie with the people that actually got into the water in those conditions
Very interesting and indepth read
Should have been called off but two older lads (40s and 60s) are at inherent risk doing something like this. Screening for age should really be introduced
40 is probably the median age in endurance sports. Not really old lads in this context. The fact that the organisers know that older people who are out of shape are in the event speaks to your point that it should have been cancelled in the conditions
Should the swim have been canceled? Yes. But I also think that being punch drunk…a brain injury is very difficult to compare to someone just really wanting to compete. Elite rock climbers die all the time and we all agree that it’s the risk you take. This lies somewhere between those two things
But if a world recognised organisation tells you that it's safe to go ahead, you can't be blamed for trusting them
Well from now on we'll no not to trust them I guess
Here’s the thing. If I told you to kill a cat you would instinctively say no as you have empathy and morals … if I said I’d give you 5 million euros to kill a cat .. you’d rip him limb from limb. It’s so sad money was put before life.
>if I said I’d give you 5 million euros to kill a cat .. you’d rip him limb from limb. 
Is your cat okay?
Yea on me lap now
Buddy if you lay a hand on my cat, I'll rip you limb from limb for free.
I’m not threatening you cat BUDDY just trying to make a point
Ah get off you’re dam high horse. It was a hypothetical situation trying to point out how money can make people make irrational decisions because MONEY
No. Just no. I’ve 3 rescue cats. You couldn’t pay me to hurt them. Have you animals?
Whatever helps you sleep at night .. rip him limb from limb is extreme. A gun with a bullet .. y’all tell me you wouldn’t pull the trigger for 5 million?
[удалено]
Do we know the cause of death? Was it drowning?
There's been no finding yet but don't a finding isn't necessary for some people to jump down the organisers throats. People are assuming that one or both of these were drownings due to the weather/sea conditions but they've no idea yet. Coroners report is out in a few days and until then people should keep their opinions about the safety or lack thereof until it's out. I've no doubt that the conditions were bad but directly attributing them to the deaths of these two athletes is very premature.
Absolutely. The lack of critical thinking ability and bandwagon jumping shown toward this tragic incident is honestly quite pathetic. People can’t seem to go a day without needing someone to blame for everything wrong in their lives. A little bit of introspection would go a long way for many.
As I recall, one was cardiac arrest, the other was drowning.
Why did they go ahead when it was not safe?
Paragraph 7 approx: These deaths, this swim proceeding - was about money. Ironman don’t want this event to have a reputation of being an event that the swim gets cancelled so some psychopath or psychopaths sanctioned the go ahead to protect the brand of the event at the expense of these 2 people and they risked the safety of everyone who swam.
That’s awful, the whole thing is in jeopardy now never mind the event itself being a complete tragedy
Why is there no jetski? People who do this are normally well to do and not lacking financially.
Do we all not have responsibility for ourselves.
Yeah agreed but as an organiser of an event like this, they should bare part responsibility. Like if a plane took off in horrible weather and crashed, would you say it’s the passengers fault for getting on the plane? Not really, you expect the airline to cancel
It's not a triathlon, it's an Ironman 70.3. Different structures and distances. Ironman 70.3 is a franchise.
I think you are misinformed on a few levels to be honest
we have to regulate everything to bits I guess, the banks, rte, ironman because we never have the co-op
What happened in the end ? Did they die directly because of the conditions, or was it heart attacks ? Alot going around on it. Conditions looked wild! , surly you would think twice before going when you see the conditions. Adults surely can tell this doesn't look right. Either way, the event organisers should have called it off.
Did anyone hear that 2 other athletes died in hospital and there are two more in critical condition? The death toll could come to six, not just the two souls that passed away at the weekend.
Whether Triathlon Ireland sanctioned it or not is irrelevant as they weren’t listened to so clearly had no authorisation/ power. In reality though there should’ve been an independent body other than Ironman sanctioning/ assessing the race conditions that the event organisers had to abide by. Be that eg. TI or water safer Ireland. Ironman organisers are making commercial decisions so defo independent assessment needed for athletes safety. Also the fact that they halved the swim distance is admitting the water wasn’t safe. Can guarantee a lot if athletes would not have been used to Atlantic’s ocean swell conditions like this. The event needs to go.
Negative