Coach Explained 'I Was Not Going to Wait' After Saving Olympic Swimmer At World Championships

Jun 25, 2022 by apost team

It's not every day that an athlete makes it to the highest level of their sports competition. It's also not every day that an athlete passes out during that sports competition. One swimmer participating in FINA World Aquatics Championships experienced a show-stopping performance. 

The championships took place in Budapest, Hungary, in 2022. The talented swimmer, Anita Alvarez, had competed in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. The Olympic athlete was born and raised in Kenmore, New York. She first competed in the Olympics when she was just 14 years old.

While participating in the FINA Championships, the Olympic swimmer fainted. According to Alvarez's coach, Andrea Fuentes, fainting can be common in the sport. The underwater rescue from coach Fuentes wasn't the first time this heroic act took place either. The coach saved the swimmer another time in years past. 
Alvarez, who was voted USA's 2021 Artistic Swimming Athlete of the Year, received medical attention on the side of the pool before being put on a stretcher. Despite the scary moment, Alvarez wanted to finish competing in the FINA World Aquatics Championship. The athlete was excited to find out from her doctors that she would be recovered and be cleared in time to finish the FINA Championships. 

Her coach, Fuentes, said that sometimes you have to push yourself to get whatever it is that you want. After rescuing her swimmer from fainting at the bottom of the swimming pool, the coach said that things like this can happen in such high endurance sports. She also said it was easiest for her to jump in because it was instinctual. 

"I was already paying attention, and then I saw her going down," Fuentes told CNN. "I didn't even ask myself if I should go or not, I just thought that I was not going to wait."

The coach said this is not all that uncommon in the world of sports. 

"We sometimes forget that this happens in other high-endurance sports. 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," Fuentes added.

Not only did her coach save her, but a photographer at the championships got the whole thing on his camera. They have since released photographs of the rescue, making the internet go wild. 

"It was kind of a shocking thing to see because as soon as I looked back down at the robotic camera I had this kind of clear view of the scene while everyone in the arena was watching it through the surface of the water," the photographer, Oli Scarf, told CNN.

"It went immediately from photographing these beautiful pictures of this amazing athlete performing ... to then just in a heartbeat, now we're photographing a near-death situation," Scarff said. "I was quite shaken, actually," they added.

After Alvarez made a healthy recovery, she was cleared to swim in the championships on Friday. 

"Anita is okay -- the doctors checked all vitals and everything is normal: heart rate, oxygen, sugar levels, blood pressure, etc ... all is okay," Fuentes said in a  statement.

"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 okay," she added. 

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We are so happy that the athlete is okay! Would you jump into a pool and rescue someone? If you found this story inspirational and interesting— pass it on to someone else who should read it!