Salt Lake City ? Swimmers were “bobbing around like corks” and struggling in 3-foot waves last weekend when a competitor died at the inaugural Utah Ironman Triathlon.

“It was a fiasco,” competitor Shawn Talbott said Tuesday.

Triathletes are helped to shore after the swim portion of the Utah Ironman was canceled because of high wind and waves at Utah Lake in this file photo. About 2,000 athletes are expected to descend in mid-June upon Clinton Lake for a national Ironman triathlon competition that is expected to pump million to million into the local economy.

John Boland of Redondo Beach, Calif., was pulled from Utah Lake Saturday. Autopsy results indicated the 53-year-old Ironman veteran drowned, raising questions about the safety of such events.

Winds gusting to 50 mph forced organizers to cancel the swimming leg 20 minutes after it began. It was 10 minutes into the race when Boland was floating motionless.

“We didn’t know if he was resting. We just saw the body was not moving,” said Curt Bramble, a Utah state senator and race volunteer.

Bramble, riding with his daughter in a motorboat, pulled Boland from the water and tried to revive him.

When boats pulled alongside swimmers to announce the race had been canceled, Bramble found some others in bad shape. He said 25-30 of them had to be “rescued.”

“We had to pull them onto our boat,” he said.

Ironman races include a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.

“Calling off the swim was the smartest thing, but maybe they shouldn’t have even put us in the water,” Talbott said.