Triathletes twice as likely to die as marathon runners!

Want to have some fun with statistics? 

1)  Triathletes are no more likely to die than marathoners or couch potatoes.  They are no less likely to die either.   Probability of death == 1.0. 

2)  "Now a study has revealed that the risk of dying in a triathlon, though low, is nearly double the risk of dying in a marathon." (from the article, emphasis mine):  Option 1:  IM vs. Marathon.  If an average competitor completes a marathon in 4.5 hours while the average ironman competitor takes 13.0 hours, the risk is <2X while the time is 2.89X.  Marginally better than the marathon IMO.  Option 2:  Any triathlon vs. Marathon.  The article doesn't specify ironman-distance races only, so we'd need some distribution of sprint/OLY/HIM/IM as well as average times for each.  If we assume 25% per distance and average finishing times of 1:30, 2:50, 5:45, 13:00 then the average amount of time spent in a triathlon is about 5:45 which is 1.28X (so a 2X is relatively worse than the 1.28X time differential). 

3)  "In the US, 13 of the 14 deaths occurred during the first portion of the swim phase"  & "USA Triathlon has recorded 23 deaths in the event since 2004 of which 18 have occurred during the swim." (from the article).  OK...so the odds of dying during the RUN portion of a triathlon are miniscule compared to dying during a marathon. 

4)  "Triathlons were events that people 'just signed up to,' " (from the article)  So how would the results be different is the comparison were to people who ran ANY event no matter how long?  People don't run a marathon on a whim (usually), nor do they do a HIM/IM without training (usually).  People do sign up for sprint-tri's without much preparation (I know, I did).  How about 5K's?  Probably worth a closer look. 

I guess you could make any argument you want and slice the data in a way that supports it.