For more extensive discussion see this Reddit thread:
Can anyone think of any other athletic event that has caused so many deaths?
Does climbing Everest count, or do you mean on the same date?
One driver and 83 spectators were killed in a crash at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1955.
Let’s limit it to the same date and athletic participants, not spectators. For example the 1979 Fastnet yachting race with 15 participants dead (which is less than the 21 dead from this race):
The gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome?
I’ll bet that they were in the best shape of their lives.
Not of this type, but I heard of a race across moorland in England or Wales, AFAIK in the Seventies, in which the contestants were lightly dressed and were caught out by a sudden change in the weather. Duh. The British hills are notorious for a sudden change in the weather, been there, done that, got damn cold. In that case the organizers took rapid action and I believe there were no deaths, but it was a very close thing.
Other athletic events with multiple deaths? I can’t think of any.
It seems to me that the Chinese organizers and the actual runners were ill prepared. The runners should have carried warm clothing, and the organizers should have set up stations along the way to intervene quickly if things got pear-shaped.
We had an ultra-marathon in Australia that put the participants through a bush fire. I can’t remember if anyone was actually killed, but someone was badly burned. The commentary was that the organizers should have called off / interrupted the race.
Speaking of which, today the Giro d’Italia was interrupted for 15 minutes after a crash. Like a car race, they stopped racing while the organizers cleared the road and took care of the injured.
It wasn’t because of the crash itself. Crashes don’t generally stop the racing. But in this case all the ambulances attending the race were tied up so that if there’d been another incident there wouldn’t have been medical assistance available, so the race was neutralized till that was resolved. Bicycle road racing is pretty dangerous, what with large tightly packed groups of racers traveling sometimes upwards of 60km/h wearing nothing but lycra and lots of chances to wipe out.
I haven’t really seen anything related to the root cause of this tragedy - why they weren’t prepared for the weather. I have over ½ dozen weather related websites/apps that I use; some are for general weather, some are aviation specific (ie. winds aloft), some are photography specific (ie. how spectacular will the sunrise/set be to shoot). I’ve seen differences in forecasts but they’re usually not polar opposites; just a couple of degrees different in terms of temp or precipitation percentage or cloud cover, etc . I also know that they’re coming from the same source (US Govt/NOAA satellites & weather balloons) but the raw data can be interpreted differently based upon the model.
Is there a lack of weather info available in China? Do we not have worldwide weather satellite coverage?
I’ve also done ultramarathons before, including one in a foreign country where I threw in the towel because I was underdressed. I don’t care what the race promoter states, I’m going to take/wear what is necessary for me to be comfortable in my race. (ie. when you’re starting a new multi-hour lap right before sunset, take that extra layer with you; you’ll want it by the end of that lap.) When I packed, the 10-day forecast was ‘normal’ & in line with yearly averages (in May, the average low is x & the average high is y) & my personal experience there. However, by the time the race happened, the forecast had changed & that one night was about 15° lower than normal. I did pack (unneeded) rain gear but never thought to pack cold winter gear. A mesh running baseball hat doesn’t do a lot to keep your head warm when it’s below freezing. Lesson learned! My next travel race I’ll be packing things I hope to never pull out of my suitcase.
The one article linked in the OP has this -
" A woman who worked for the race organizer, Gansu Shengjing Sports Culture Development Co., said there were no predictions of extreme weather for the day of the race, according to Beijing News, a paper owned by the Beijing city government.
However, Baiyin city’s local branch of the National Early Warning Information Center had warned for the past three days of hail and strong winds.
The race also followed a relatively established course, having been held four times, according to an account posted online by a participant in the race who quit and managed to make his way to safety.
But the weather caught them off guard, and on the morning of the race Saturday, he already sensed things were not normal. The runners were not dressed for winter-like conditions, many wearing short-sleeved tops."
but it makes it sound that they were clueless that this storm might occur. Is this a ‘China’ thing in that weather info isn’t as readily available there as it is here?