FINA announced in a press release on it’s official website this morning that they would be assembling a Task Force, made up of independent experts, to investigate the death of US open water star Fran Crippen last week.
This panel will be made up of 5 members, and led by swedish official Gunnar Werner, who is the acting president of the Court for Arbitration of Sport in Switzerland. Werner was appointed by FINA to represent them in the investigation immediately after Crippen’s death.
The five members of the panel will be:
- One expert of a recognized life-saving organization (i.e. the Red Cross)
- One expert in Cardiology and Sports Medicine, with a focus on “sudden death” cases
- Two experts appointed by USA Swimming
- One Fina expert in law
Given that FINA, and the UAE Swimming Association, have already gone into defensive mode on this in an effort to relieve themselves or liability, it makes me a little nervous that two out of the six investigators will be from FINA, and two more could be a part of USA Swimming. There is an obvious desire to put a blame on a specific person here, and my hopes are that the FINA-appointed panel (and Werner, who is an honorary FINA member) maintains enough independence to avoid finger-pointing. Finger-pointing could be very dangerous in a situation like this, as the group (FINA) who is appointing the panel also has a vested interest in their findings, and it would therefore be dangerous for this task force to accuse any specific person or group.
Instead, it is much more important for the panel to decide where there was a breakdown in the process. Why were the swimmers allowed to swim in this temperature of water? Was the water temperature even the issue, or would Crippen have survived had medical attention reached him sooner? How far should safety measures reasonably be expected to go in a sport that is inherently dangerous?
Now, open water swimming will face a lot of the same questions that professional football is. In the NFL, there has been extreme legislation taken to reduce the number of bone-rattling hits taken, and similar rules to limit damage from concussions. Open water swimming will need to ask many of the same questions in a sport that is becoming increasingly physical, and decide what safety measures they are willing or able to implement without affecting the nature of the sport. Unfortunately, unlike the NFL, open water swimming doesn’t have the luxury of stopping play to ensure safety. Perhaps a sort of pit-stop system can be implemented, where swimmers must enter a medical zone for exactly 45 seconds every 2 kilometers for a doctor to run quick field-tests. It has been widely reported that Crippen told a coach that he didn’t feel well shortly before his death, but nobody feels well after 9 kilometers of open water swimming, and it is impossible to put the honus on a coach, or athlete, to pull a swimmer mid-race.
Most importantly, the current safety measures need to be rewritten, as they are very vague and leave a lot of leeway for meet organizers, which often times allows for abuse of the rules in the name of saving a buck.
The panel will likely take the methodology that Fran’s sister, Maddy, advocated, which is to speak with everybody present at the race, until they get enough clues to piece together some answers. The fact is that given the situation, the panel will probably never be able to figure out what was the singular leading factor in Crippen’s death. It’s unlikely that there is any video, and water temperature readings at open water races are notoriously fickle. The best we can hope for now is answers to how we can prevent as many of these tragedies as possible while still allowing the sport of open water swimming to grow, and that’s exactly what Fran would have wanted his legacy to be.
Click here to read about how to donate to the Fran Crippen Elevation Foundation.