Wisconsin Man Dies After Competing in Ironman Race.
The 51-year-old athlete required medical attention during the biking portion and later died at the hospital. He’s the 15th triathlete to die this year. On Sunday, a 51-year-old man died while competing in the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon. He needed medical attention during the bike portion of the race and was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.
Event organizers did not release the athlete’s name, but shared that the man was from Madison. In a statement, they announced the news with “profound sadness,” and thanked the first responders who came to the man’s aid on the race course.
“We share our deepest condolences with the family and friends of the athlete and will continue to offer them our support as they go through what is a very difficult time,” organizers wrote. “We thank event personnel and first responders who worked to provide the athlete with medical support.”
The local sheriff’s office said that additional details, including the man’s name, will be provided by the county medical examiner’s office. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that this is sadly not the first time an athlete has died while participating in Ironman Wisconsin. In 2019, two athletes died during the swimming portion of the race, which takes place in Lake Monona. Michael McCulloch was taken to the hospital—after being found unresponsive in the water—and was pronounced dead due to accidental drowning. A Madison firefighter named Todd Mahoney was also found unresponsive in the water during the Ironman 70.3 race (half the distance of a full Ironman), about an hour after McCulloch. He was taken to the hospital and died two days later.
Tragically, these kinds of deaths occur often enough that in 2016, The Daily Beast published a story headlined, “Why Do So Many Middle-Aged Men Die During Ironman Competitions?” and there have been scientific studies exploring the question. At that time, 109 people had died during amateur triathlons, the majority of them middle-aged men competing for the first time. The man who died in Wisconsin was the 15th triathlete to die just this year.
Dr. Lawrence L. Creswell, a cardiothoracic surgeon, told The Daily Beast, “The swim is likely to be the most strenuous part of the day in a triathlon. For the typical triathlete’s heart, it’s the time when the heart rate is apt to be the highest because it’s the highest level of exertion.”
These fatalities can occur even for men who have a high level of fitness and who have put in months of training. Though the Wisconsin athlete died after complications during the biking portion of his race, what is more common is that triathletes die in the water portion of the race because they are unaware of an asymptomatic heart condition.
