FORT WORTH, Texas — Luka Đukić, the brother of the CrossFit Games athlete who died while competing in a run-swim event in a Fort Worth Lake on Thursday, posted an emotional message about his late brother, Lazar Đukić, on his Instagram story Friday.
Following the tragedy on Day 1, the decision was made to continue the competition on Friday and a tribute for Lazar was held in the morning before Day 2 events kicked off. This show of respect to the fallen athlete was met with a response from the grieving Luka.
At the top of the post, Luka wrote, "You loved the sport that didn't love you back. No tribute will ever give you back to me. This is something that could have been prevented and there is no way of going around it."
According to the CrossFit Games' YouTube broadcast on Day 2, Luka Đukić did not sign in for Friday afternoon's event and Lazar's lane was left empty as an additional tribute. Athletes could be seen stopping before and after their workouts for a moment of silence.
Luka Đukić said in his post that he has a huge amount of respect for each athlete and however they decided to deal with the situation, even if that meant still participating in the Games.
In the Instagram story, Luka then left an ambiguous message saying "Maybe there will be some time in the future where I will be able to share more, for now, this is everything I will share on this matter."
Luka's Instagram story ended with a simple and powerful message to his fallen brother.
"My brother, you touched more lives than you know and you will live forever."
Former CEO of CrossFit Dave Castro expressed his condolences to Đukić’s family in a video online.
“It’s been an incredibly difficult day with the incident today with Lazar, and I’m mourning just like our community is. Just like the family is. And trying to focus on what we can do for them and how we can make it better with what we’re able to do with this small thing we have,” Castro said.
A GoFundMe started to support Đukić’s family exceeded its $200,000 goal, having raised more than $305,000 as of Friday morning.