The Worst Triathlon Ever

Yesterday was the day of the worst triathlon I ever did. Or didn't do, as the case may be. Close to 9 months ago, I registered for the triathlon at World Out Games Miami, as well as the swim meet (hosted in tandem with IGLA, the international governing body for gay and lesbian aquatics). Without belaboring the point, the sole reason that swimming, water polo, synchro, and diving went on is because of the blood, sweat, and tears of the members of IGLA that organize these sports on an annual basis. Without them, swimming would have likely fallen to the same fate as the upwards of 300 other sports that were canceled in the days before the events were to take place.

Something seemed off about the triathlon in the weeks leading up to when we departed for Miami. It is virtually unheard of to not receive a ridiculously long electronic packet of information for a triathlon prior to the race. Generally, there are something like 2 important details buried in 30 pages of stuff you have heard a million times. Since I hadn't heard anything, I emailed OutGames, as well as our swim team's contact to IGLA to ask two rather important questions--the first was if the event was still going on, and the second was what the water temperature in Miami was. I live on the west coast, and the ocean water temperature is always freezing cold, always wetsuit legal, and never something that you have to question. Miami, however, is much warmer, and a google search said upper 70s or low 80s this time of year--likely above the threshold for use of a wetsuit, and one less thing I should pack for a triathlon. I hadn't received a response from them the day before I left for Miami, so I asked my coach what she thought the likelihood of a wetsuit swim was, and she responded that it was pretty unlikely and the water temp was likely to be in the 80s--it was enough for me to not pack the wetsuit.

I found out the triathlon was canceled as we were pushing back from the gate to fly to Miami. In the several minutes before we had to shut down electronic devices, we found out that there were people coming from as far as Australia whose events had been canceled while they were in-flight. The email from OutGames was succinct, mildly apologetic, and made it clear that swimming would go on. I am much more fortunate than a lot of other people who trained for their races all year long, some of whom undoubtedly made this their A-priority race of the season. They lost their OutGames general registration fee ($150) along with their sport specific event fee, which varied by sport, but was $125 for the triathlon. If someone were traveling specifically for the triathlon, and not doing any other sports, they lost $275. Nobody has any expectation that refunds for these sports are coming--in all likelihood, this is money they will never see again.

Word got out that OutGames allowed people to register for the events as late as the week before the opening ceremonies. One person who posted to Facebook said that she and her partner registered for Golf the week before and were given no indication that there was anything wrong with the events. It is implausible that the organizers of OutGames did not know that they were in financial straits a week before the events that they canceled. Statements such as "fraud" and "misappropriation of funds" were tossed about on social media. An article came out in the Miami Herald that the organization would be investigated. Anybody who watches TV or movies knows that these things take time, sometimes on the order of years to come to conclusion, and anyone who has been the beneficiary of a class-action lawsuit knows that the likely outcome is that each person that is owed any money will wind up with no more than pennies on the dollar of what they paid, if they get anything at all.

I don't ever expect to see the hundred and twenty-five bucks I lost on the triathlon again. The cynic in me says that OutGames owes me more than that, because part of the reason there is a general registration fee is to cover the cost of the multi-sport/multi-cultural events that are a big part of the gathering of gay and lesbian athletes from across the globe, and those events were canceled outright. Recovering that money is a pipe dream strapped to the back of a unicorn, sliding down a rainbow into a pot of gold.

What I lost more than that money was the experience of doing that triathlon, because those events are fun to do, in particular when the pressure is off to perform well. I've been dealing with an elbow injury, and had made peace with the fact that I would likely struggle through the swim (I swam as slow as a 5:32 for a 400 meter free this week), and then see what I could do with the bike and the run. Again, I am much better off than some people, who were likely gunning to go a PR, win the race, or have some other goal they had been working toward for a very long time. OutGames stole that opportunity from them.

OutGames dashed the hopes of thousands of athletes this week, and for that, they should be cast out of existence, never to be heard from again...except for the check for 67 cents I'll probably get in 5 years.