Two die in the Ironman at Youghal

Princess Calla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121025059#Comment_121025059

To be fair deaths are not uncommon and a quick search will tell you most deaths occur during the swim section. So to say a company was exposed to a risk beyond what is normally understood to be at stake is a bit inaccurate.

When it comes to sea swimming there are so many unknowns that can influence the outcome. It really is down to each individual to know their own limits and judge conditions accordingly.

If you try to push that back to a company you'll most likely end up in a situation where you have to take part in qualifying races throughout the year to prove you can handle the sea. Turning it into more of an industry than it already is, driving up costs even further.

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121024327#Comment_121024327

Its good to get honest unbiased posts like this. I never trust the media after an incident like this. Shock and fear sells, strange how it is only the participants that were fearful of their lives that get onto the vox pops.

Marty Bird

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121025211#Comment_121025211

I’ve done 10 Ironman events over the last few years, I personally found the swim fine but I can definitely see if your a nervous swimmer or first timer the conditions could make some panic as pointed out by @Furze99 from my earlier post.

blade1

A friend of my brothers said he found the swim fine as well.

Even some where delighted with their swims.

I don't remember the exact times but I think they were expecting the first few swimmers to do it in around 20 minutes so were surprised to see the leader do it in 14 minutes and so many seconds.

Slideshowbob

Slipping out of the news feed. Reminded me of the Creeslough gas explosion. What's happening with that?

magicbastarder

Timeline of events in the Irish times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2023/08/26/youghals-triathlon-tragedy-what-exactly-happened-during-the-ironman-race-last-weekend/

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121028666#Comment_121028666

Behind a paywall.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121028666#Comment_121028666

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121028710#Comment_121028710

times podcast....

https://player.fm/series/in-the-news-2930202/blame-game-deaths-and-the-youghal-ironman

Aquals

The fact that so many swimmers were delighted with their swim times, and with how quickly they completed that section of the race, tells you everything you need to know about the sea current they were in that day.

A very strong current pushed them from the turnaround buoy to the finish line. Unfortunately most of them had to get to the buoy first, by swimming against that current, and were completely exhausted by the time they got there.

Genghis

Behind a paywall again, but Irish Times article today saying Ironman plan to sue TI next week unless their statement is withdrawn.

Also confirms that Arachas was the insurer and TI CEO emailed clubs last Friday night to say Arachas had confirmed the personal accident policy “was operative during the event” subject to “usual” terms and conditions. Surprised me to read that so clear, presumably Arachas accept claims to be made by the two athletes, or had Arachas been able to confirm insurance was primarily Ironman's insurer??

Interesting in any event to now see TIs next move: crumble or double down.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/08/29/ironman-group-threatens-legal-action-over-youghal-race-after-double-fatality/

MikeCairo78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042988#Comment_121042988

Arachas are merely the broker and would have no say on cover. It will be very simple from a personal accident point of view - if the race was correctly sanctioned or not. If not, no cover will apply, it is that black and white. It will then fall between the Professional Liability policies for both organisations. Working in insurance I would imagine the Ironman policy is based on American paper and the policy that will react, if any policy at all will be the TI policy. To get to that stage, however it will be a very long and drawn out affair. But if the race wasnt correctly sanctioned, I doubt the Personal Accident policy(which is a benefit policy, a pays out if y occurs, and would be in place for injury) will not pay out in the normal course of things, though public pressure may force it to may an Ex Gratia payment(policy shouldnt react, but because of the circumstance we will pay you a certain sum). Whatever it is that people say about personal responsibility, the insurance that people are referring to is the Personal Accident / Benefit policy in place for TI sanctioned events

Genghis

Thanks Mike. I would be interested in clarifying a couple of things, mainly in an effort to try to understand what TI have been saying.

You reckon that if the race was not sanctioned by TI, there would have been no personal accident insurance (notwithstanding any insurance Ironman have). I think we all would expect that, but that is not what the CEO of TI has said publicly.

I suppose I am trying to rationalise the two CEO actions, namely:

• Mon 21 August - high profile press release clearly saying TI could not [and did not] sanction the event
• Fri 25 August - email to all clubs clarifying the event insurance was "operative during the event" never the less

This seems to suggest that insurance cover was not dependent on TI sanction?

Also, I get what you say about Arachas being a broker (not an insurer) and that you'd expect they would have no say on cover. But the Irish Times report that Arachas DID clarify cover, and did so presumably because TI were seeking clarification from them which they intended to publish to their members via clubs? Why would Arachas not have reserved comment or directed TI to ask the insurer? You would have to think that TI asked Arachas, Arachas asked the insurer, and the clarity was then sent out??

Slideshowbob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043292#Comment_121043292

For a sport / event that tends to attract high net worth individuals (perhaps intelligent people) to compete, it's really astonishing there is such confusion re what is / is not in place.

griffin100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043292#Comment_121043292

It doesn't really matter whether not the personal accident cover was in place during the event. The families of the 2 men who died will get a small payout under this policy if it was in place if there is a payment for death on the policy. On these types of policies there usually is and it's probably around €25k / €50k.

The big potential for a civil claim here is around whether or not there was negligence on behalf of TI or IM that lead to the participant deaths. That will require the families of the deceased to take a claim against either of both of the parties and for a legal judgement to be made in favor of the plaintiff or defendant(s), or it could be settled without going to trial. If found liable TI or IM's liability insurers would probably cover the costs of any payout, but event if they didn't TI is an NGB affiliated to Sport Ireland and IM is a multi national multi million entity. Both will be fine in dealing with any uninsured costs. People tend to get caught up on insurance, but lots of large organisations operate with essentially no insurance and they 'self insure' for claims made against them, i.e. pay out the claims from their reserves or a special fund that they put aside - Dublin Bus for example self insures against personal injury claims (or at least they used to).

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045593#Comment_121045593

Are you implying that Sport Ireland i.e. the taxpayer could be picking up the tab for potentially large civil claims?

If so, can't see the general public being overly enthused about this idea.

A large events management company from outside the state runs an event in conditions that maybe shown in court to be reckless and the taxpayer might pick up the tab.....

unkel

@Furze99 - "A large events management company from outside the state runs an event in conditions that maybe shown in court to be reckless and the taxpayer might pick up the tab....."

Hey that rings a bell, where did we see that before? Oh yeah with the catholic paedophile priest scandal. Sure it only cost us taxpayers a billion or so...

griffin100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045903#Comment_121045903

Not necessarily, what I mean is that if TI were subject to a large uninsured claim they are unlikely to be allowed by Sport Ireland to go belly up. That said I think it's highly unlikely that if found legally liable in any way that TI's liability insurers wouldn't pay up. It's a core tenet of liability policies that they pay up for claims where the insured is found legally liable that occur in the normal course of the insured's business.

How IM would respond to any claims in the Irish courts would be interesting. They have no legal entity status in Ireland so could just ignore any claims. That said this might cause problems for them in other jurisdictions if they are seen to run away from a court case.

It's all crystal ball gazing at this stage. I think we will know a lot more about where this might end up when the coroners inquests are completed and the actual cause of death are announced.

Genghis

Excellent context, thanks @griffin100

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045928#Comment_121045928

Come now, not remotely comparable.

Ardent

It's all gone a bit quiet on this. Has it been swept under the carpet already?

nokiatom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121078539#Comment_121078539

Have TI met their match?

Hurrache

The gardai are part of the investigation now so it's unsurprising the tit-for-tat has ceased.

https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/1699699648699461895

valoren

They would have drone footage so presumably this will be handed over for examination.

munsterfan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079442#Comment_121079442

As someone who participated in the swim / IM this is the first I've seen of this request. Surely they can get the list of participants from IM / TI

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121078539#Comment_121078539

Will all come out in the wash eventually. Queue announcements in due course that triathlons and similar challenge events sadly have to be cancelled due to exorbitant insurance premiums and the gov must intervene etc etc

Rows Grower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079932#Comment_121079932

It's an appeal to the general public not just the competitors and it was only announced today.

Atlantic Dawn

This being discussed now on tonights Prime Time on RTÉ1.

Hurrache

Details here, don't think all the bluster by Ironman about suing has much of a leg to stand on.

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/0921/1406657-reports-into-ironman-event-shed-new-light-on-how-races-proceeded/

munsterfan2

One stat that was missed was how many people didnt complete the swim, if you go through the results there are 322 DNS / DNF's. Rather than just saying there was a lot of people pulled out of the water someone could have gone through the results to see how many DNF's took no further part than the swim. Compare that to the average / std. dev of DNF's for an IM70.3 and you get a proper indication if the swim was reckless.

(DNS - did not start, DNF - did not finish)

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121141577#Comment_121141577

As the event was due to take place on the Saturday some people of the dns may have been unable to do the Sunday start to accommodation or transport plans. The dnf would probably be the best measure.