USA-Swimming, which has launched its own investigation into the death of open water star Fran Crippen two weeks ago independent of FINA’s task force, has made an open appeal to the swimming community. In a press release today, USA-Swimming is interested in hearing from anybody who has who has “any information, recommendations and suggestions relevant to USA Swimming’s independent investigation of swimmer Fran Crippen’s death at the FINA Open Water World Cup race in the United Arab Emirates.”
USA-Swimming seems to be unconvinced that FINA can conduct its own accurate and independent investigation. Their call for information resembles that of Fran’s sister Maddy, who has vowed to talk to everyone at the race or with any other information until she finds out what happened, and more importantly how to prevent it from happening again.
Anyone with information can send an email to [email protected].
I do not know Fran, or his family and I am not a part of the swim community, but I had most definite feelings on the issues revolving around his death. I am a physical therapist and a certified athletic trainer and am more than saddened by his death, but also outraged.
I also have concerns about the FINA task force. Seems strange to me the “chairman” of the task force is an attorney. (For some reason, that fact creates a negative impression for me.)
I too am reaching out to my community to help find information on maximal performance and water temperature. http://snippetsphysther.posterous.com/my-reaction-to-fran-crippen-death I have a small collection of research and the hopes others will contribute here: http://www.mendeley.com/groups/618831/open-water-swimming-and-hyperthermia/overview/
Without insinuating any sort of liability, events such as these need to occur with better supervision and coaching (per team entry):
1) That must be present and have equipment to be able to view the swimmer during the entire course;
2) All swimmers must be required to wear a GPS (locator) device and/or a “911” emergency call tag;
3) Follow much more universally applicable and strict rules governing water (min/max) temperation requirments for events expressed in a “per distance” metric.
4) Coaches may be able to “disqualify” the conducting of an event with a majority vote if proper and safe conditions appear to be disgarded in any manner.
Some good points. Hadn’t considered GPS. It’s possible that if the swimmers had on GPS devices, then coaches could be automatically alerted if the swimmers’ pace drops significantly, which might indicate a problem. Could also be a tool that makes the sport more appealing-tracking speeds, paces, paths, etc.
And I think the last one is an important one that people are ignoring. Two issues at play are that #1 rules implemented a pretty big fine if swimmers backed out of a race at the last minute, and #2, swimmers had to have competed in the last race of the circuit to qualify for prize money. There MUST be a way for competitors/coaches to overrule these penalties if conditions are not… Read more »