Legendary BMX racer turned top AG triathlete Dave Mirra suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy according to numerous news reports.
Dave Mirra took his own life on the 4th of February, 2016, inexplicable at the time to those who knew him because he was a devoted family man and much loved. What caused his death is now more easily understood.
Reports state that Dave Mirra’s brain had the same tao protein signature found in professional football players, in the “frontal and temporal lobes” according to ESPN.
CTE can only be diagnosed after death, and Dave Mirra’s wife Lauren made the decision to have her late husband’s brain analyzed for CTE.
Dave Mirra was a favorite of the multisport community and anything written about him was the subject of much attention. The 2016 year would have been his fourth season as a multisporter. In April of 2015, Slowtwitch editor Herbert Krabel spent a good amount of time with him and his family in North Carolina and interviewed him, and captured "a day in the life" gallery of this passionate and very determined athlete. On February 13th of this year Cervelo hosted a Celebration of Life for a man and athlete clearly missed. Mr. Mirra’s ebullient, hard-charging, 3-and-a-half short years in triathlon touched many.
Dave Mirra raced a number of 70.3 events, finishing with fast times by any age group standard, and he raced and finished Ironman Lake Placid in 2015. He did not race in Kona although he certainly could’ve gotten a celebrity slot. He did not want to race Kona without earning it.
"Ellie at Ironman asked if I wanted to race if I did not make it, and I said no and she respected it and was cool with it. There are people who try forever and never make it. I qualified for 70.3 Worlds last year and when I was at the event I looked around and thought If I didn’t make it here on my own I wouldn’t want to be here racing. This is for people who made it and it is not just another race. It is the ultimate," said Mirra in the April 14, 2015 interview.
“Mirra has become the first action sports athlete to be diagnosed with CTE,” wrote ESPN senior writer Alyssa Roenigk as a preface to an interview with Mr. Mirra’s wife Lauren, to underscore that CTE is not sport-specific. It is not a football and boxing disease, it is a neurological brain disorder brought on by repetitive brain trauma and concussion.
