Dallas (AP) — A Serbian competitor in the CrossFit Games died while competing in a swimming event Thursday morning at a Texas lake, officials said.
CrossFit CEO Don Faul said during a news conference that they were “deeply saddened” and were working with authorities on the investigation into the death of one of their athletes at Marine Creek Lake in Fort Worth.
The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office identified the athlete as Lazar Dunkin of Serbia. The medical examiner’s office had not yet listed his cause of death.
An official with the Fort Worth Fire Department said they were called out around 8 a.m. to assist police because there was “a participant in the water that was down and hadn’t been seen in some point in time.”
Officers who were working the event were told a participant was unaccounted for after last being seen in the water and then not resurfacing, police said.
The Fort Worth fire official said they responded for search and rescue and were not on the scene when the initial call was made.
Faul said CrossFit had a safety plan and did have safety personnel on site at the event. CrossFit did not respond Thursday to an inquiry from The Associated Press seeking more details on that safety plan.
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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported the event on Thursday included a 3.5-mile (5.6-kilometer) run followed by an 800-meter (0.5-mile) swim. The newspaper said an estimated 10,000 people were in the area for the games, which began Thursday and were set to run through Sunday.
Kaitlin Pritchard told the newspaper that she was standing by the finish line when she saw Dukic approach. She said he was among swimmers she noticed had changed up their swimming patterns, which she thought could have been because they were tired from the run.
Pritchard saw people she assumed were lifeguards on paddle boards on the lake but didn’t notice any of them jumped in to try to rescue anyone, she said.
“Gauging where the people on the paddle boards were and everything, it’s just that he should have been reachable,” Pritchard told the newspaper.
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