The Lake Placid Ironman is a big part of North Country sport culture, but questions have been raised for years about safety.\u00a0 A lot of the attention has focused on the tumultous, hectic swim start, where dozens of athletes pile into the water at the same time.<\/p>\n
The Washington Post has a report up this week<\/a> looking at the fact that at least nine triathletes have died in the last year, all but one of them during the swim portion of the event.<\/p>\n Whether nine is a complete count of fatalities isn\u2019t known. USA Triathlon, which keeps track of deaths in the 2,500 races it sanctions, won\u2019t provide the numbers. It has, however, recently appointed a panel of three physicians and two race directors to look into them.<\/p>\n All but one of the nine deaths occurred in the swim portion of the races…A similar preponderance was seen in the only rigorous analysis of triathlon deaths<\/a>, which appeared last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association.<\/p>\n Researchers at the University of Minnesota found 14 deaths from 2006 through 2008. Thirteen occurred in the water.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The big water start is dramatic — it is one of the most audience-friendly moments in a triathlon event — and it’s also popular because it’s egalitarian.\u00a0 For one brief moment, everyone is on the same line.<\/p>\n