Alvarez previously fainted following a routine in Barcelona last year
American artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez was rescued from the pool by her coach after fainting at the World Aquatics Championships.
Alvarez had sunk to the bottom of the water and was not breathing after finishing her routine in the solo free final in Budapest.
After realising what had occurred, her coach, Andrea Fuentes, jumped into the water and pulled Alvarez to the surface before she was taken away on a stretcher.
The US swim team later released a statement from Fuentes saying Alvarez “feels good now”.
Rapid rescue.@AFP photographers Oli Scarff and Peter Kohalmi capture the dramatic rescue of USA's Anita Alvarez from the bottom of the pool when she fainted during the women's solo free artistic swimming finals at the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships pic.twitter.com/8Y0wo6lSUn
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 23, 2022
Alvarez ‘ok’ after incident
Speaking about the incident, Fuentes said: “Anita is OK – the doctors checked all vitals and everything is normal – [her] heart rate, oxygen, sugar levels, blood pressure etc. All is OK.
“We sometimes forget that this happens in other high-endurance sports [such as] marathon, cycling, cross country. We all have seen images where some athletes don’t make it to the finish line and others help them to get there.
“Our sport is no different than others, just in a pool, we push through limits and sometimes we find them.
“Anita feels good now and the doctors also say she is OK. Tomorrow she will rest all day and will decide with the doctor if she can swim free team finals or not.”
Fuentes was ‘shouting at the lifeguards to get into the water’
Spanish outlet Marca reported that Fuentes said she had jumped in the pool “because the lifeguards weren’t doing it”.
Speaking to Spanish radio, she said: “It felt like a whole hour. I said things weren’t right, I was shouting at the lifeguards to get into the water, but they didn’t catch what I said or they didn’t understand.
“She wasn’t breathing. I went as quickly as I could, as if it were an Olympic final.”
Alvarez previously fainted after a routine during an Olympic qualifier in Barcelona last year, with Fuentes also rescuing her on that occasion.
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