Andrea Fuentes has become the great protagonist of the Budapest Swimming World Championships, not for a sporting aspect but for having rescued her pupil Anita Álvarez when she fainted in the pool at the end of her solo exercise in the synchronized final. "She had never swum so fast in my life, not even when she was an Olympic medalist," she explained in RAC1's Tu Diràs.
The Catalan, who during her active stage won four medals at the Games and 16 at the World Cups, one gold, explains how her instinct surfaced when she saw the American swimmer sink into the water. "When you finish a choreography you are so tired that the first thing you want is to breathe, you need it," said Fuentes, who reacted when he saw Álvarez "go to the bottom" in the Isla Margarita pool.
"I yelled at the lifeguards to jump off", he warned first, although later, when he saw that "they didn't react", that "they were paralyzed", he took the initiative: "I saw that no one was coming and then I jumped as fast as I could and I swam to Anita." "They panicked," he denounced in El Mundo about the lifeguards, one of whom came to help when Valls's had already pulled the swimmer to the surface.
Fuentes explains to As that the lifeguard didn't "help her too much." "I have studied and you have to put it on its side so that it does not swallow water and can start breathing, he wanted to put it on its back, and a small absurd fight was generated to see in what position we placed it. He did not speak English either and he did not understand me We finally managed to get her out," he said.
"Days before I had talked about it with the delegates of the International Federation and they told me: 'The lifeguards are ready, you don't have to mess it up'", revealed the Spanish coach, who she had seen before, in the qualifying tests for the Games last year, like Alvarez, 25, had suffered another fainting spell.
"In training I will not say that it is something usual, but it happens, it happens. In competition you normally have everything very tight, but in training you look for the limit a lot. In the end it is something more or less normal in elite sport," he added about the efforts that swimmers must make, sometimes until they pass out.
Fuentes, despite being dressed, with the extra weight that wet clothes carry, managed to pull Álvarez out of the water, who later tried to wake her up "with slaps." "I think she has been at least two minutes without breathing because her lungs were full of water, but we have been able to take her to a good place, she has vomited the water, she has coughed and that's it, she is in a good scare," he said.
Despite the dramatic scene, "the doctors insist that everything is fine" and he could even participate in the team final on Friday. "She wants to swim and leave Budapest with her head held high, everyone is encouraging her to do it," she revealed about the American, a member of the American team at the last Tokyo Games and bronze medalist in duo and team in the 2019 Pan American Games.
Álvarez finished in seventh position in the solo event, just behind the Spanish Iris Tió. The world champion was the Japanese Yukiko Inui (95.3667), the silver for the Ukrainian Marta Fiedina (93.8000) and the bronze was awarded to the Greek Evangelia Platanioti (91.7667).
