Double Russian Olympic champion in synchronized swimming Vlad Chigireva told that incidents like the one with the American Anita Alvarez sometimes happen to athletes.
Alvarez collapsed during a free skate at the World Championships in Budapest on Wednesday. She was pulled out of the water by coach Andrea Fuentes.
– On air, if you don’t look closely, you wouldn’t be able to notice how everything happened. She remarked to herself that Anita did not go to the platform so, she received points for a long time and put the same points as in the semifinals. Even then I thought that for something the note had been removed. Today I have already seen footage of Fuentes jumping into the water and helping pull Anita out of the pool. Now, knowing the issue, I have already rewatched the show and it is clear that there is a crowd of people on the side and something is going on.
It’s terrible, but it happens. It is not for nothing that we have introduced in the regulations that it is impossible to be underwater for more than 45 seconds. We have had cases before where a Japanese woman went to the bottom after the group program at the Olympics. It happened often. Yes, it’s terrible, but it’s true. It’s a sport, in open water. Maybe she got hot or coincided with a health condition that is not the best. In the semi-finals, she did the same solo with the same difficulty, made it to the end and went well.
Yesterday we wrote off Fuentes, she didn’t state that story in any way. I congratulated her on her good performance, she said she would answer in detail later, as she was focused on the competition. Big respect to Andrea for responding so quickly. Children underwater swim for a while and don’t always realize it’s time to come back up. Oxygen deprivation gives such an effect – you seem to be fine, but in fact you are no longer. And when it comes to the sport of the highest achievements, we work at the peak of our abilities, the body does not always have time.
We also had moments of this kind in the team. They did not go to the bottom, but it happened that they did not go out to the platform after the performance – they simply could not go. On the air you can sometimes see how athletes descend the steps, they are usually supported by coaches or colleagues. The work goes to the limit, after the races you can see how hard it is. “Do one more race” are the worst words you can hear from a coach.
In childhood, no one instilled this in us, it was already in my head: “die, but finish it”. You may already be passed out, but you finish it. In Rio, she completed the program in “darkness”. I didn’t see anything, I was looking for touch support – sun, power surge, my body and brain were off. She walked out, took a breath, and came to her senses. In Tokyo, there was no longer a black hole in front of my eyes, on the contrary, everything was starting to clear up one way or another. Although they experienced acclimatization in advance, but apparently it didn’t go all the way and superimposed on the personal condition.
I think Anita went all out solo, it overlapped with her well-being and something like that happened. Hope all is well with her. I will definitely know from Andrea how she feels,” Chigireva told .
Last year, Alvarez passed out in the water during an Olympic qualifier.
Source : MatchTV
