CAMBRIDGE, Md.- It was an optimistic morning at the Ironman village. There was some blue sky to be seen, gear was being given to the athletes, and briefings were held. Athletes were preparing themselves for a wet Ironman Maryland race on Saturday.
"I think it's going to be rainy, I think we're going to have to roll with that a little bit, so gotta mentally prepare for that, but I'm excited," said Tim Tobin of Washington, D.C.
"I have been seeing the forecast, and it's still possible, eh? It's kind of 50 50 percent so yes, I'm a little bit worried, yes," said Serge Cleerbout, who came all the way from Belgium for the race.
Behind the scenes, race organizers were trying to figure out if the race against mother nature to hold the triathlon was something they could win.
"We're working closely with local officials, we were just in an emergency operations center meeting trying to track the storm," said Scott Langen, southeast operations manager for Ironman. "With the cone of uncertainty, we don't know where it's going to head, or where it's going to make landfall."
But as the day wore on, the chances of bad weather missing us decreased, and a call had to be made. Ironman Maryland has been shelved, for now.
"This could be a major major issue for the Delmarva Peninsula this weekend. And what we won't want to do is put you out on a course where we can't guarantee that we can safely race you," said Race Director Gerry Boyle.
The event has been tentatively rescheduled for Oct. 17. Reception amongst racers is mixed.
"We weren't entirely surprised, but we will be back. We will come back and do the race," said Christy Tagye of Florida.
"Would like to have seen them wait one day, 24 hours because it's still so unpredictable. But I get it, and I don't want to cast any aspirations on the race director because he had to to what was right," said Christy Zieres, also of Florida.
And in two weeks, Dorchester County Tourism Director Amanda Fenstermaker says they will be ready.
"It's a tremendous opportunity to have the race rescheduled. They don't do that, Ironman doesn't do that in a lot of occasions, so it's fantastic that that's even a possibility for us, so we'll see how it goes."
More event cancellations and reschedulings for this weekend can be found by clicking here.
