American artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez, 25, was rescued by her coach from the bottom of the pool after she fainted during the World Aquatics Championship.
She was not breathing and had sunk after finishing her routine in the free solo final at Budapest. Andrea Fuentes, her coach, pulled her to the surface before she was taken away on the stretcher. Andrea said, “Ankita is ok and the doctors checked: all the vitals and everything is normal, her heart rate, oxygen, sugar levels, blood pressure, etc are all okay.”Anita scored 87.6333 points for her routine and finished 7th in the final.
Andrea said that she was sacred and had to jump to rescue Anita as lifeguard were not doing it. "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.”
