Mara Flavia, Brazilian triathlete and fitness influencer was experiencing health problems before drowning competing in Texas ironman competition in Lake Woodlands over the weekend.
A Brazilian triathlete and fitness influencer drowned while competing in a ironman competition over the weekend, Texas authorities said.
Mara Flávia, a 38-year-old Brazilian influencer with more than 61,100 followers on Instagram, vanished during Saturday’s open-water swim in Lake Woodlands, the first of three endurance legs that competitors face during the 140-mile race that involves a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2-mile run.
Frantic calls poured in to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and the Woodlands Township Fire Department just after the race starting circa 6 a.m., Fox 26 reported. Woodlands Fire Chief Palmer Buck told Click2Houston that crews were first notified about the ‘lost swimmer’ around 7:30 a.m.
Experienced female triathlete goes missing during swim leg of Texas ironman race
The pro female swim started at 6:31 a.m., according to the Texas Ironman schedule.
Rescue teams searched the lake while the triathlon was still in progress, which Buck indicated added to the difficult conditions and exacerbated the dive team’s ‘zero’ visibility.
Flávia a star Brazilian triathlete was pulled out of the water just after 9:30 a.m., roughly three hours after she disappeared. By then, her body had sunk down 10 feet to the bottom of the lake, Buck said.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The sheriff’s office confirmed that Flávia ‘drowned while participating in the swim portion of the event,’ according to a released Facebook statement. The office said its Major Crimes unit will continue the investigation as ‘per normal protocols.’
‘Mara was an accomplished triathlete, placing third in the Brasilia Triathlon and obtaining two world qualifications for the Ironman 70.3,’ the US Sun reported.
‘Friend Luis Taveira suggested Mara had health problems, even though her cause of death has not yet been revealed.’
‘She was ill before the trip, she wasn’t okay,’ the friend stated.
Adding, ‘My wife and I spoke with her to say she was too weak for this race, although a couple of days ago when we talked to her, she insisted she was okay. I still cannot believe what’s happened.’
Dangers of participating in triathlons
She told her Instagram followers in a recent post how she became a triathlete nearly eight years ago after being diagnosed with a health problem, saying: ‘I saw a way to be reborn, God and sport.’
While few fatalities have been reported participating in triathlons, competitors often face a crowded initial field during the swim leg as athletes seek to get ahead of fellow competitors, leading to participants enduring kicks or strikes to the body or face.
An Ironman volunteer, Shawn McDonald detailed the ‘panic and fear’ he and other witnesses experienced when Flávia, whom the seasoned triathlete, vanished under the water.
‘They all said the same thing: She went under. Right here. Right below us,’ he recounted.
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He said one veteran racer clung to the side of a kayak with ‘a thousand-yard stare’ because ‘he had just watched someone disappear beneath him.’
The selfless volunteer, dove under enough times that he ‘lost count’ while trying to retrieve Flávia.
During his first attempt, he ‘felt her body’ with one foot.
‘She was gone. I don’t know how to describe what that felt like. I tried again. And again. And again. I just knew I would feel her again and could grab her and pull her up,’ he wrote.
He admitted that he didn’t rationalize the risks he was taking until long after Flávia’s body was recovered.
‘It never entered my mind that she had already passed long ago. I just kept searching like I was going to pull her up alive,’ he wrote.
The volunteer hailed Flávia for ‘chasing something most people only dream of finishing.’
‘She showed up for it. She deserved to come out of it,’ he wrote.
‘To her family: we did everything we could. I am so deeply, genuinely sorry that it wasn’t enough. She will stay with me,’ he added.
Mara who was born in Sao Paulo, was a journalism graduate and worked in communications on radio and television for a decade before transitioning into a sporting career at age 28, Brazil’s O Dia reported.
Authorities continue to investigate.
