What happened at Ironman in Youghal? 'It was like a warzone out there'

An hour-long delay on the start-line — which many athletes thought was linked to a last-minute assessment of the weather and sea conditions — only heightened the tension.

But when the start finally came, for most of the athletes, there was no sense of relief, no sense of explosive enthusiasm.

Instead, a sense of unease and dread rippled through the main body of athletes as they watched the professional triathletes struggling to swim through 12ft high breakers which rolled relentlessly in on a high tide, crashing over competitors and smashing onto the rocks.

Stefan, an experienced triathlete who asked that his surname not be used, said they knew the swim course had been shortened because of the conditions, but still, he knew there and then that embarking on this swim in those conditions was a bad idea.

“These world-class elite athletes were struggling. They are absolutely amazing, stunning athletes and we see they are struggling. Somebody should’ve stepped in there and then and said, ‘Hold on a second — look at these guys’,” he said.

But no one stepped in to call a halt. Perhaps it was commercial pressures on Ironman which may have faced refunding some 2,500 athletes, many of whom had paid anything from €300 to €800 each to compete.

Within minutes, Stefan and thousands more triathletes were running headlong into the broiling sea.

Within an hour, Ivan Chittenden, in his 60s and from Toronto, and Brendan Wall, in his 40s, originally from Co Meath, were both dead after getting into difficulty in separate incidents during the swim.

Their deaths brought to 11 the total number of deaths during Ironman events around the world so far this year — eight of those occurred during the swim element.

Just last July, Irish triathlete Sarah Fagan, from Louth, died after getting into difficulty during the swim at the Alp D’Huez triathlon in France.

Stefan says he feared for his life and claims others came close to death too.

He was among dozens of exhausted and stressed competitors who were plucked to safety by members of the event’s on-water safety team.

Immediately, serious questions were being asked about why the swim went ahead in those difficult conditions, and why an alternative route in the relative shelter of the bay wasn’t used.

Those questions only intensified later in the week when it emerged that the governing body for the sport here, Triathlon Ireland, had not sanctioned the race amid concerns over the adverse conditions.

And that’s the key point, Stefan says.

“We weren’t told before the start that it wasn’t sanctioned,” he says.

“We were all standing out for an hour in the freezing cold, assuming that they were calling it off and going to a plan B.

“So then when they announce for the elites to go, everybody was gobsmacked.

“We were looking at these professional athletes struggling in the water.

“This is their job. These are amazing athletes but when you see them being pushed back in the waves, I knew I was not going to be able to complete it.

“I thought it was too dangerous, but I got in. Everyone else did too.” Ironman is a lifestyle — athletes commit fully to the sport, they go “all in”, with their lives based entirely around an intense regime of training, nutrition, hydration, and rest.

Self-pressure

Those involved say you might be able to complete a marathon with limited preparation, but not an Ironman.

“You can’t fake an Ironman,” Stefan says.

It takes a huge commitment, with between 20 to 30 hours of training required every week, for months on end.

Stefan accepts athletes put themselves under pressure to compete last Sunday.

“There was this pressure of having travelled, of having paid the money, with family watching, and the fact that in my case, I’ve trained for a whole year, and everyone else was getting in so I will give it a go,” he says.

He recalls how difficult it was to get through the first huge waves, of how people ahead of him were being pushed back, of how those who managed to get through the waves were then pushed sideways by a strong current as they tried to make their way to the turning buoy.

He saw one competitor wading in and carrying a limp-bodied woman to safety.

“She was moments from drowning, basically. It was just insane,” he says.

“People ahead of me were being pushed back against me. It was like a warzone out there. It felt like being in a washing machine.

“I started to panic a little bit. My breathing started to go and I know that as soon as my breathing goes, that’s it.” 

He put a hand up and a safety kayak came to his aid. He grabbed it, and claims he saw about 10 other swimmers hanging off another safety kayak, as some of those on the safety crew looked around in shock at the scale of what was unfolding.

Life in danger

He managed to compose himself and started swimming again, but about 70m offshore he was hit by another massive wave.

“I felt my life was in danger. And that was it. I said, ‘No, I’m not doing this’. I was straight out of there. And I’m glad I did.” 

He was hauled on board an RNLI rib and was brought ashore with a number of others before he managed to complete the bike ride and marathon.

He has followed the media coverage of the double tragedy over the last week, including the assertions from Ironman that it followed all the safety protocols, and the dispute between Ironman and Triathlon Ireland over when the governing body told race organisers they could not sanction the event, and he says he is still firmly of the view that the swim should not have gone ahead.

“My personal view is it was clearly dangerous,” he says.

There is an argument that you should know your own limits and should have seen it was dangerous and not gone in — and I get that.

“But Ironman has a duty of care towards the athletes, regardless of whether you are a professional or a first timer.

“If I had known at the start of that race that Triathlon Ireland had not sanctioned the race, I would not have gone into the water in the first place, simple as.

“They should have told us that the race has not been sanctioned. I would argue that a majority of those swimmers would not have got in if they had known that fact.

“At least they should’ve given us the choice.” 

Experienced triathlete, Keith O’Sullivan, echoed those sentiments when he spoke during the week of his own experience of the swim.

“The challenges we faced coming off the beach were not something that we have ever trained in or that any professional triathlete would normally train in because the waves were crashing so high they were driving people back directly onto rocks,” he said.

The spotters and kayakers who were part of the on-water safety teams were struggling to stay upright in the heavy swell, he claimed.

Winnie Moore was competing in her fifth Ironman race and said after making it 200m offshore, she also began to panic in the large swell.

Another swimmer stopped to ask if she was OK, and called one of the safety kayaks to her, before it had to go to the aid of another distressed swimmer.

She swam on a bit further but decided to call for help. She was retrieved by a safety boat, which then plucked four men to safety. She said:

I just said it’s not worth it, I didn’t have to prove anything to myself.”

But there are differing views.

Most are reluctant to share their views publicly out of respect to the families of the dead men, and amid a certain fear of public backlash.

One competitor, who is also an experienced RNLI crewman and who asked to remain anonymous, said he saw nothing on the start line that he believed should have forced the cancellation of the swim.

He said he is very conscious that two families are grieving, but he said some balance and perspective needs to be restored to the narrative, and that it must be accepted that participation was ultimately down to the individual.

“Most people were happy to do it,” he said.

“It was one of my tougher swims, but I didn’t feel it was dangerous or life threatening.

“I looked out from the start and saw plenty of safety boats, a few ribs and lots of kayaks gathered close together as one safety resource. So anyone who went in on Sunday morning and found it uncomfortable, could get out.

The conditions looked bad, but it must be remembered that Storm Betty had passed 36 hours previously.

“There was a 1.4m onshore sea swell at the time, which was exaggerated because of high tide, and that is why people saw the crashing waves at the start. But there was no real wind. The high tide made it look worse.

“I’m not saying people should go out in that kind of sea, but it was OK for me.

“The day before the sea swell was 3.5m and they cancelled the events that day. And rightly so. I heard no competitor complain, and I heard no one on the shore complaining.

“I’ve been at regattas where people have shouted from the shore for an event not to go ahead because of the weather and I’ve been at regattas where people have complained about the event not going ahead.

“There were 2,500 people on the beach on Sunday morning looking on and there was no protest.

“The average Joe Soap who has never competed in an Ironman will look at the videos and most will give out about it.

“But the professional athletes actually went out in the sea earlier to warm up before the race started.

“The organisers here were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t cancel.” He also said he is happy with the oversight of the sport here through Triathlon Ireland.

“Obviously, my thoughts are with the families of the deceased, but I hope this tragedy doesn’t put people off the sport. Triathlon is a great sport and it is a sport for all ages.

“But I firmly believe that if you had people in their 50s and 60s competing in GAA every weekend, you’d see deaths like this too.

“It was just so unfortunate. But there is a certain amount of people who lose their life every year in triathlons.” 

The experience hasn’t put Stefan off the sport and he says if Ironman is staged in Cork again next year, he’ll be there on the start line.

“But the difference is if the water is like that next year, I ain’t getting in — simple as,” he says.

“I’ve got a family — three children. I’ll fight another day at the other events. 

But next time I see choppy water I’m going to ask an Ironman official has this been sanctioned by the governing body? I will ask that explicit question.” 

Not a death in vain

For Lorraine Dempsey, whose husband Carl, 47, died during the mountain run section of the Gaelforce West endurance race in the West of Ireland in 2021, the last week has been difficult too — she knows better than most what the Chittenden and Wall families are going through.

A post-mortem revealed that Carl, who was in the best physical shape of his life at the time of his last race, had coronary heart disease.

“Carl had relatively little interaction with GPs,” she said.

“He was never really sick, apart from an ear infection in the 1990s. He was fit and he ticked all the boxes for doing what you needed to do to prolong your life.

“We knew he had a cardiac arrest on the mountain, but we didn’t know why. It was only about six months later, when we got the reports that we got the shock that he actually had — hiding away — moderate coronary heart disease.

“This would have been decades in the making.” 

They also learned that Carl probably had a mild heart attack the week before race but didn’t recognise any of the symptoms because he had never really been unwell.

“He just thought he had pulled a muscle and he took a day off training,” she told the Opinion Line on Cork’s 96fm during the week.

Before last year’s race, she spoke to Gaelforce athletes to explain how Carl had died and to urge them to get medical check-ups and screening.

“His death impacted on them psychologically. I wanted them to know that there was something hidden from him, and that while they are super-fit elite athletes who feel they are invincible, I wanted them to realise that they should go get checked out periodically,” she said.

“If you’re fit and healthy, great, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get screened or see your GP every year or two and say, ‘Check my blood pressure and cholesterol’.” Despite the heartbreak, Lorraine said she has peace of mind knowing that Carl died doing something he absolutely loved.

The families of Mr Chittenden and Mr Wall have said the same.

But they will want answers. There have been calls this week for a public inquiry to establish the full facts around their deaths as gardaí in East Cork prepare files for the coroner’s court.

It is not a criminal investigation: It is a routine process undertaken by gardaí who act as agents for the coroner in the gathering of evidence in relation to all sudden or unexplained deaths.

Ironman’s safety protocols and decision-making process, as well as the conflicting accounts from Ironman and Triathlon Ireland about the non-sanctioning of the race will feed into that process.

But it could take up to a year before those inquests are held in public and the full facts emerge.

Ironman has also been asked by Cork County Council, the event sponsors, to prepare a full report. Whether that report will be made public in advance of the coronial process is not clear.