CrossFit executive Dave Castro has apologized for how he handled the announcement that last month’s CrossFit Games would continue following the death of 28-year-old Serbian participant Lazar Dukic during the swimming leg on the first day of competition.
On Thursday morning, Dukic’s brother and fellow CrossFit competitor Luka Dukic called out Castro on Instagram for a conversation the two of them allegedly had Aug. 8, hours after a body was recovered from Marine Creek Lake in Fort Worth, Texas, and identified as Lazar Dukic. No cause of death has been given.
Luka Dukic wrote that Castro told him the organization wanted to continue the Games “as a tribute for your brother.”
“In a shape I was in mentally at that moment, I said many things, but most important ones were ‘I don’t care, nothing will bring him back’ and ‘I dont think I am thinking clearly so this decision should not be up to me,’” Dukic wrote. “Dave replied ‘its not up to you anyways.’”
“Later, decision to continue the Games was presented as ‘the wish of the family.’”
Castro responded Thursday night on Instagram: “I should never have said that the decision to continue the CrossFit Games in August was ‘blessed’ by their family. At the time, the decision was made to continue the Games and allow our athletes to compete — and we respected those athletes who decided to withdraw. This decision was made by CrossFit and I never intended to put the weight of this decision on Luka, the Dukic family or our CrossFit athletes.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this before and I absolutely made a mistake. I sincerely regret any pain I’ve caused.”
The Instagram post represented Dukic’s first public comments since his brother’s death. In it, Dukic was critical of CrossFit for its lack of preparation for such an emergency and for how it responded as the situation unfolded and in its aftermath.
“While I won’t point fingers on this post and try to ruin anyone’s name,” Dukic wrote, “I feel obligated with my family, to do everything that is legally in my power to ask questions, go deeper into this case, and try to see whose fault [it] is that there was no reaction from the multi-million dollar organization, whose most of the staffs job is to make this one weekend perfect.”
Dukic said the last time he saw his brother was when they were entering the water on the first day of this year’s CrossFit Games. The weaker swimmer of the two, Dukic said he was passed by several other athletes, “so I couldn’t really see where Lazar is or how is he holding up.” It wasn’t until awhile after he finished, Dukic wrote, that he realized his brother hadn’t come in from the lake.
He later watched footage of the race from the competition’s live stream of the event.
“What I later saw on the video was that there were no attempts to save Lazar,” Luka Dukic wrote, “he was fighting and went down close to two very unequipped volunteers (yes) on the paddleboard who didnt saw him and very close to the finish line.”
He said later in the post: “How could this happen on competition of this size, how could it happen on a live-stream and to someone who was very easy to keep track of as he was one of the few people in the lead.”
Dukic also detailed an Aug. 9 conversation with Castro in which they discussed a tribute being planned for later that day.
“I asked Dave cause I know he is overseeing everything, to provide me level of privacy I needed at that time,” Dukic wrote. “I wanted to come to the tribute … but I didnt want any media around me, I didnt want to be around the athletes and I didnt want to be on the screen.
“As my wish was not respected, after that I didnt have any other conversation with anyone from HQ. I was asked to meet Dave on Saturday night which I rejected and I was asked to attend closing ceremony which I rejected as well.”
In response to questions from The Times regarding Luka Dukic’s post and the events surrounding Lazar Dukic’s death, CrossFit emailed Castro’s statement from Thursday night, as well as an Aug. 23 statement from the organization announcing a third-party investigation into accident and the company’s intention to “build greater trust and safety for the future of our sport.”
More than anything else, though, Luka Dukic’s Instagram post paid tribute to someone who was much more than a sibling to him.
“He was my brother, my best friend, my idol, fellow competitor, training partner, someone I went to when I didn’t know what to do and someone I ran to when I had good news,” Dukic wrote.
“Following the path he created for both of us we grew even closer than I ever imagined we would be as kids. On Thursday 8th of August, I lost all of it, in the most traumatic and tragic way possible. While we were chasing our dream.”