• Andrea Fuentes' experience "The lifeguards panicked"

  • Scare at the World Swimming Championships They rescue the American synchronized swimmer Anita Álvarez after fainting in the water

  • Album The great scare of Anita Álvarez in the Budapest swimming pool

The International Swimming Federation (FINA) announced this Thursday that it will review the current regulations that prevent the intervention of lifeguards without a signal from the referee, after they did not react in time on Wednesday to assist the American swimmer

Anita Álvarez

, fainted and who she was rescued by the quick intervention of Spanish coach

Andrea Fuentes

.

In a statement, FINA revealed that lifeguards hired to work at world swimming championships

can only go into action after authorization from the referees

, which is why Fuentes was faster than them.

The incident occurred on Wednesday at the World Championships in Budapest, when the American swimmer Anita Álvarez fainted at the end of her exercise in the artistic swimming free solo final.

Thanks to the quick intervention of Fuentes, the mishap was only a scare.

After signaling to the lifeguards without their reacting, the coach jumped into the pool to rescue her pupil.

Later, she told the press that the rescuers had been paralyzed.

Avoid interruptions

"According to the regulations, (the lifeguards) can only jump into the pool after receiving a signal from the body of referees," said the director of the world health service,

Béla Merkely

, in the note.

This is a restriction imposed to avoid interruptions of the competition programs "in the event of a possible misunderstanding," he explained.

Merkely admitted that the referees did not react immediately.

"After the coach jumped into the pool, the lifeguards, seeing the situation, no longer waited for the signal from the judges and intervened," she adds.

After leaving the pool on a stretcher, the swimmer recovered and is out of danger

.

The US team's scheduled lineup for Friday's final still includes Alvarez.

This was not the first time that the swimmer had fainted in the pool, as the same thing happened to her last year in Barcelona, ​​in the Olympic qualifying competition.

FINA promised to investigate the case to determine how cases like the one now happening could be prevented.

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