Body of triathlete recovered and identified

By Maya Rao and Chris Melchiorre

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Derek Valentino, a mail carrier and father of two, had worked hard in preparation for his first triathlon.

He never really got the chance to compete.

Sunday night, almost 34 hours after Valentino entered the water for the swim leg of an amateur sprint triathlon, police recovered his body in the Schuykill River.

Valentino, 40, of Prospect Park, "worked very hard for his family," said a friend, Samantha Savukinas. He was the father of two boys, ages 15 and 17, and had been avidly training for Saturday's event.

"He tried very hard for the triathlon, and he's very loved and will be missed," said Savukinas.

The search for Valentino's body consumed most of the day yesterday and canceled the swim leg of Sunday's Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon, the main event on a weekend that drew scores of triathletes to the city. Competitors instead ran two legs of the race and biked the third.

"We did it out of respect for the man's family," Richard Adler, race director, said of the change in plans. "The competitors were very understanding."

Valentino worked for the U.S. Postal Service for about 20 years, said Savukinas. He went into the water about 8:22 a.m. Saturday with a wave of about 100 swimmers in the 40- to 44-year-old age bracket.

The swimmers entered on the Martin Luther King Drive side of the Schuylkill, not far from Montgomery Avenue. They swam to Columbia Avenue bridge and returned to the spot where they had started, a distance of about a half mile. The police department's marine unit recovered the body in the river at 1500 Martin Luther King Drive, authorities said.

A search was launched for the missing athlete after he failed to emerge by 9:40 a.m. Adler said that between lifeguards, kayaks, and marine boats, there were at least 20 people watching the water at that time, but that no one saw anything unusual.

"I think that we are probably considered one of the safest races out there," Adler said. "But I think that this is, by nature, a dangerous sport. And I think the athletes know that going in. So we will absolutely take a look at what we did, but I truly believe we were very well covered out there, as we have been for the past six years."

In a statement, Adler said all those involved in the triathlon "want to extend our sincere and deepest sympathy to the participant's family. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this difficult time."

From a competition standpoint, many athletes said that taking the swim out of the triathlon not only changed the playing field, but made it more difficult to deal with the persistent humidity Sunday.

None, however, questioned the decision to change the race from an Olympic-distance triathlon to a duathalon - which consists of a 10 kilometer run, a 20K cycle, and finally another 5K run.

"It was definitely the call they had to make," said Bevan Docherty, the two-time Olympic medalist who took home the men's title Sunday.

I have a friend who swears the way to remedy the slosh is to "reset" your nutriton.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulimia_nervosa for helpful hints.

Me... I'd prefer to be a tad conservative and run a few calories under than to err on the side of having too much.

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