An athlete died Thursday whereas swimming in a lake on the primary day of competitors on the CrossFit Video games in Fort Price, Texas, organizers of the worldwide occasion mentioned.
The Tarrant County health worker’s workplace recognized a physique recovered from Marine Creek Lake as Lazar Dukic, 28, of Serbia. No reason behind dying was given.
“CrossFit is deeply saddened by the dying of a CrossFit Video games competitor through the swimming portion of Particular person Occasion 1 on the 2024 CrossFit Video games,” the group mentioned in a press release. “We’re totally cooperating with authorities and doing all the things we are able to to assist the household right now. The rest of as we speak’s occasions have been suspended. The well-being of opponents is our first precedence and we’re heartbroken by this tragic occasion.”
A Fort Price Hearth Division official mentioned throughout a information convention that the division was requested to help police at round 8 a.m. as a result of there was “a participant within the water that was down and hadn’t been seen in some cut-off date.” The official mentioned it took the division’s dive workforce about an hour to search out the physique.
CrossFit CEO Don Faul and Fort Price Police Division Sgt. Leah Wagner additionally spoke on the information convention. Wagner said the identify of the sufferer was being withheld at the moment out of respect for the household.
“CrossFit is, as you recognize, in some methods like a household,” mentioned Faul, whose group first held the CrossFit Video games in 2007. “Folks care loads about one another. There’s lots of people locally which might be hurting proper now, which might be actually unhappy, that knew the athlete properly, that cherished, revered this individual.”
Dukic’s Instagram bio states that he was a “4x CrossFit Video games Athlete.”
In keeping with his bio on the 2024 CrossFit Video games web site, he ranked as Serbia’s No. 1 CrossFit athlete yearly from 2017-2021 and ranked at No. 3 within the nation this 12 months — one notch beneath his brother, Luka Dukic, 25, who can be listed as a 2024 CrossFit Video games competitor.
One other 2024 CrossFit Video games competitor Cole Be taught advised WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Price that he had solely met Dukic as soon as, however that assembly left an enduring impression.
“The one factor I keep in mind about him was simply how good he was,” Be taught mentioned. “He didn’t know who I used to be, however he took the time to speak to me, talked in regards to the competitors and the way it was going for him. … I’ve at all times cheered for him simply due to that second.”