The CrossFit community is mourning one amongst their very secure.

Serbian athlete Lazar Dukic died in Marine Creek Lake in Castle Price, Tex., while competing in a swimming tournament on the first day of the 2024 CrossFit Video games. He used to be 28.

His location off of death is pending the of an put up-mortem by the Tarrant County clinical expert, according to files bought by E! News.

A spokesman for the Castle Price Fire Division said at a press conference Aug. 8 that search-and-rescue crews had been known as spherical 8 a.m. that morning a few “participant in the water” who “hadn’t been viewed” for a while. He said with the aid of dive groups and drones, Dukic's body used to be found in the lake about an hour later, The Recent York Occasions reported.

Police later said in a assertion to the newspaper that the athlete used to be declared useless at the scene.

Dukic used to be viewed slipping underwater for the length of the CrossFit Video games' 800-meter swimming competition.

“We watched Lazar traipse below and we screamed for some lifeguards who had been rather far-off,” fellow competitor Cole Be taught said in an Aug. 8 Instagram video. “But we had been yelling for lifeguards and unfortunately, they couldn't hear us, and he good never came encourage up. I am completely devastated.”

In a assertion shared to X, beforehand is named Twitter, CrossFit said the firm is “fully cooperating with authorities and doing the entirety we can to beef up the family at this time.”

The organization suspended the final CrossFit Video games activities the day of Dukic's death nonetheless resumed the video games Aug. 9., foundation with a tribute to the behind athlete at Dickies Arena, which they filmed and launched on YouTube. Throughout the tournament, fellow competitors honored Dukic with a second of silence, and it used to be declared that the total 2024 competition used to be dedicated to him.

“This day is the saddest day in @CrossFit history,” the neighborhood wrote in one other message on X Aug. 8. “We are shattered by the inability of Lazar Dukic along with the total CrossFit community.”

The message persevered, “Lazar used to be one amongst our sport’s most talented competitors, nonetheless he used to be critical extra than an athlete. He used to be a son, a brother, and a chum to practically all and sundry who knew him. Fiercely competitive, incurably gratified and uncommonly form, Lazar used to be the sun of any room he used to be in. The lack of his light is inconceivable.”

Dukic's youthful brother, fellow CrossFit Video games competitor Luka Dukic, additionally shared an homage to the behind athlete.

“You liked the game that didn't enjoy you encourage,” he wrote on his Instagram Stories, including a photograph of the stadium tournament dedicated to Lazar. “No tribute will ever give you encourage to me. That is something that can also have been averted and there is now not any process of going spherical it.”

He persevered, “My brother, you touched extra lives than you know and that you may maybe stay with out extinguish.”