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Change of Pace
He didn’t even learn how to properly swim freestyle and breathe between strokes until less than two weeks before the event. However, those legs that produced national-championship speed on blades proved equally productive on the bike and run.


“I started running and thought I was doing OK, but started falling behind,” Austin said. “People started passing me. But on the bike, that’s when I knew I’d pass everybody else. A few people passed me in the swim, but I knew I was doing OK.”


Austin, still 13 at the time, placed first in his 10-14 age group, winning by almost 10 minutes. He smoked everybody in the 15-19 age group, too, finishing the 3.1- mile run, 12.4-mile bike ride and 400-meter swim less than 20 minutes behind the overall winner, Scottsdale-based pro Lewis Elliot. Austin had a new love.


“Afterwards, I was really tired, but I liked being out there in the transition area and everything,” he said. “I just liked the whole environment. I like racing, but I didn’t know I was going to do that good the first time. It was a lot of fun.”


Austin, now 14, already is planning more events and ramping up his training.


His bedroom is typical of most teenaged athletes, filled with medals and trophies, including a glass plaque for that national fastest-skater competition. His closet is filled with a collection of colorful hockey sweaters. But maybe none of the hockey awards or memorabilia means more to Austin and his family than the single, small trophy on the shelf from that sprint triathlon. It represents more than just another first-place finish. It says he has moved on and found a new competitive outlet.


Unfortunately, Crosby isn’t alone. A study published in the September issue of Pediatrics found that from 1997-2007 emergency room visits for sports-related concussions doubled among 8 to 13-year-old kids participating in organized team sports.


Those visits increased 200 percent in 14 to 19-year-olds involved in organized team sports. And the concussion rate was highest for kids playing hockey — 10 in every 10,000. Football wasn’t far behind with eight in 10,000 making an emergency room visit for concussions on the field. The study went on to stress that more research is need on the long-term effects of concussions on pre-high school kids.


Dr. Kristina Wilson, a pediatric primary-care sports medicine specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, believes it’s likely that the concussions were always occurring, but because of better education of parents and coaches, more of them are now detected. However, once a young athlete suffers a concussion, Wilson said research indicates that they are more likely to suffer more of them.


“And we don’t know why,” she said. “We don’t know if there is something about them that made them more susceptible to concussions in the first place, or if there is some change that occurs when they have their first concussion that makes it more likely they’ll have another one.


“But, yes, we do know that once they’ve had one, they’re at a higher risk to have multiple concussions, as are adults.”


Wilson is part of a Phoenix Children’s Hospital group of specialists currently discussing how long young athletes who suffer a concussion should wait before returning to competition once their symptoms have cleared.


The more difficult question the group is wrestling with is how many concussions are too many? There is no clear-cut answer, but Wilson said there is little doubt that Crosby and his family made the right choice.


“When you get three or four over a period of time, that’s when you have to start having that discussion about how important the sport is to them and consider whether it’s time to do exactly what Austin did – find another athletic outlet that they enjoy just as much that doesn’t put them at risk,” she said.


And she added that once an athlete gets to that point, it would be her recommendation that he or she never return to contact sports.


Austin’s parents know there still is some risk even in triathlon, especially training and racing on a bike. But with a proper helmet and because drafting is illegal — spreading out the action on the bike leg in most events — they believe that he’ll be able to compete safely and for years to come.


In fact, Austin already sounds like a typical triathlete. “I’m going to try to do better in my run, and I’ve got to practice more at swimming,” Austin said. “Eventually I want to do an Ironman.”


Bob Young is a sports columnist and freelance writer based in Phoenix, Ariz. He’s a three-time Ironman finisher.


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