FINA prohibits Anita Álvarez, the swimmer who fainted, from participating in the team final at the World Cups

The International Swimming Federation (FINA) has communicated this morning to the United States synchronized swimming team that it excludes the swimmer Anita Álvarez from the final of the team free routine scheduled for today at four in the afternoon at the World Championships in Budapest , according to sources from the American team.

The US artistic swimming team had decided that Anita Álvarez would rejoin the competition after suffering a fainting spell that threatened to drown her at the end of the free solo final that was played last Wednesday afternoon.

The incident recorded in a spectacular photographic series by the France Press agency generated a growing state of alarm in the organizers of the World Cups.

This morning, the doctor responsible for the health of athletes in the Budapest pools, Dr. Merkely Bela, told a local Hungarian media outlet that Anita Álvarez was not physiologically prepared to withstand the demands of artistic swimming tests at the highest level. .

“There are different types of athletes.

Some tolerate changes in the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in their body well.

But there are those who are more sensitive to this, and Anita Álvarez is one of these people.

Synchronized swimming is probably not for her,” said Dr. Bela, referring to the long periods of apnea that swimmers in synchronized events must tolerate.

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Interview with Anita Álvarez: "I felt that everything turned black"

Andrea Fuentes, the Spanish coach of the United States team, the doctors of the American federation and the swimmer Anita Álvarez, who is also the captain of the North American team, had agreed on Thursday to participate in the final of today's collective free routine.

"I want to finish these World Cups with my head held high," said the swimmer on Thursday.

"I want to be with my teammates in the final, I don't want to disappoint them," she added.

The 25-year-old swimmer explained in an interview in EL PAÍS how her fainting occurred: “I just felt like I was leaving everything in the pool.

In the last figure, where I have to say goodbye by raising an arm, I remember thinking: Push that arm!

Don't give up now!

Give it your all until the last second!

In the past I have felt like I was fading.

This time I think she was so connected mentally, so into my role, living the moment so intensely, that she was really enjoying my performance.

Keep going, keep going, keep going… Sometimes you don't feel pain until you stop.

It's like athletics.

I like to run.

Sometimes you are running and the moment you stop is when you feel the blow.

In this routine I felt great, as tired as ever but enjoying it.

And when I felt that I could finally allow myself to relax was when everything went black.

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