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Troisport Joburg City Triathlon Tragic Luck
Monday, 14 December 2009
The 10th Troisport Joburg City Triathlon took place on 13 December 2009 under some bizarre and twisted circumstances.
During the week the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) informed us that they could only supply 9 officers to assist with the road closures and road restrictions, that we enforce on the cycle course and run route. (We normally get 15).
On the morning of the race, the commanding officer informed us that there could only be four people from their department that could assist . During that time a cyclist got knocked over by a truck on the corner of Lake and Rand Airport Road. This was a hit and run incident. The elderly male cyclist lost a leg and his life was in danger. A ambulance helicopter landed on the road to airlift him to a hospital.
The EMPD party that was on site at VLC, was dispatched to assist with this accident. One of the officers, who was the first law enforcing officer on the scene had to go to the SAPS station to assist with the criminal investigation into the hit and run incident. The whole intersection got closed off to traffic. All the vehicles coming down Russell road from the N17 were diverted into Rand Airport Road or Chapman Road. Of this stream of traffic, most opted to turn left into Rand Airport road onto our cycling course. The situation was of such that we couldn’t block of the cycling course – which is paramount to happen before the start of the race. A call was made to postpone the race by thirty minutes.
By 07:50 the injured cyclist was airlifted and the police gathered all the information and evidence needed in their investigation. We provided more infrastructure onto the cycling course to assist with our lack of EMPD backup as we were now down to 3 officers.
By 08:15 we liaised with the chief race referee as we had all our marshals and EMPD personnel in place. We had an extra vehicle on the cycling course to look for unauthorised "leakages" onto the cycling course. We were ready for the 08:30 race start.
Shortly after the swim start of the men’s field (approximately 08:45) a Piper Arrow light aircraft took off from the Rand airport on their north-south runway. The plane didn’t lift off the ground on takeoff and burst through a concrete palisade fence and skid over Rand Airport Road, which is part of the cycling course!
Craig Thysse from CGT, who was patrolling the cycling course was one of the first people on the scene. We rushed there with our event paramedics. Besides the wrecked plane against the golf course fence, the entire road was covered in debris. A host of paramedics, ambulances and fire fighters arrived from a variety of directions. We were now down to zero EMPD officers.
A call was made by the Referee Team to channel the athletes onto the run course and cut the cycling portion completely out of the race. This was done with relative ease as the main events swim leg was still underway with some 500 athletes in the water. This was the best possible decision that could have been made under the circumstances.
We would like to thank the technical and refereeing team from Central Gauteng Triathlon in the professional manner in which they handled the situation.
The unfortunate and tragic cycling accident that took place on the corner of Lake and Rand Airport Road, earlier on in the morning had possibly saved the lives of triathletes and officials that participated in the first event of the 2010 Troisport Joburg City Triathlon Series.
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