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A glamorous influencer who tragically drowned during a Texas Ironman swim had been struggling with the flu but chose to disregard her friends’ pleas to withdraw from the demanding race, one friend revealed.
“She was unwell before the trip, she really wasn’t in a good state,” shared Luis Taveira, regarding his close friend Mara Flávia, 38, who unfortunately passed away during the event on Saturday in The Woodlands.
Reflecting on recent conversations, Taveira said, “My wife and I advised her against competing because she seemed too frail, but just days ago, she reassured us that she was fine,” as reported by the sports outlet The Spun. The Brazil-born influencer’s determination was unwavering despite her condition.
“I am still in shock over what happened. Her illness was due to the flu,” he added.
Despite being “weakened” by her sickness, Flávia continued to “train hard,” according to her friend.
Just two days before the competition, Flávia shared a picture of herself in a pink swimming costume and cap sitting by the edge of a pool.
“Just another day at work,” she wrote in Portuguese.
Her Instagram account was peppered with snaps, showing her working out in a gym, by the pool, or running outdoors.
“Not every victory is photogenic, not every growth is pretty to watch. Sometimes evolving is being silent, stepping back, saying no, crying in the background, and coming back the next day more aware,” she said in one motivational post.
In others, she said that skill “only develops with hours and hours of work” and sport is “the best tool for transformation.”
The Ironman Texas competition features three legs — a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. The women’s event got underway just after 6:30 a.m. Saturday, with fire crews alerted around an hour later that there was a lost swimmer.
Flávia’s body was found around 9 a.m. in about 10 feet of water.
Officials have ruled her preliminary cause of death was drowning, and relatives have paid tribute.
Flávia’s sister, Melissa Araújo, said her sibling “lived life intensely” – and revealed a piece of her had vanished, People reported.
“You were always synonymous with determination, with courage — with a strength that seemed too vast to be contained within you,” she wrote on social media.
“You never did anything halfway; perhaps that is why you left such a profound mark on the lives of everyone who crossed your path.
“A piece of me is gone, and I will have to learn to live without it. And it hurts in a way I cannot even explain.
“It is a strange silence, a void I knew existed all along — as if the world itself had lost a little of its color.”
Flávia’s partner, Rodrigo Ferrari, described the swimmer as his “love” and said not waking up next to her was hard.
“Ursa, you were the best person I have ever met in my life,” he wrote in a note shared on social media.