The Swimming World Championships and National Representation | Opinion

Our country has developed a significant history in Open Water competitions and events for over a century. Numerous international figures like Antonio Abertondo, Pedro Candioti, Lilian Harrison, Horacio Iglesias, Claudio Plit, Diego Degano, and more recently Gabriel Chaillou, Damián Blaum, and Cecilia Biagioli, attest to this with their achievements.

Many of these figures are from the Litoral region, but also from Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Mendoza, and they have enhanced this specialty, which hasn’t been at its best for some time.

The Open Water swimmer, Candela Giordanino, has qualified and will represent us next month at the World Championship in Singapore. She has mentioned to various media outlets that she needs financial assistance to improve her preparation before the event. The ticket and her stay will be fully covered by World Aquatics, the organizing entity.

However, it’s not just about arriving three or four days early and competing; that would reflect a tourist manual approach. The time difference with Singapore is 11 hours, so she would need to adjust to the competition time zone around 15 to 20 days in advance. This is necessary to avoid issues related to time zone adaptation, different temperatures, and humidity, which can lead to sleep disturbances and also gastrointestinal problems.

Of course, she must familiarize herself and swim multiple times in the competition circuit, watching the currents and water temperature. Recently, sports journalist Gonzalo Bonadeo, arguably the most prominent television promoter of amateur sports, explained the situation and wondered how it was possible that a funding issue of only 1,200 dollars could remain unresolved.

I wonder the same, aside from the government’s apparent disinterest in the sport, manifested in inadequate budgets and the limited expertise of those in charge of managing it. One must ask: What is the respective Federation doing?

The current authorities of Argentine swimming cannot be accused of ignorance or improvisation, as two of their main leaders have been strong swimmers, and the president has engaged in various sports initiatives in this discipline for years, along with current national coaches.

It seems more like ineffectiveness, resignation, lack of imagination, or some political speculation that I don’t understand, given that this is a significant amount for an athlete but negligible for the National or Provincial State, and also for a Confederation.

This small expenditure would provide the opportunity to compete on an equal footing, at least formally. It would be wise and beneficial for swimming and all sports if the Sports Federations communicated their difficulties to the general public while being proactive in finding solutions.

Athletes are expected to focus on training and competing, not on raising funds, which should be handled by others. Otherwise, the chances of a good performance diminish, revealing that some individuals may be unnecessary in the sports hierarchy.

* Former National Director of Sports.