USA Swimming Plans Boycott of UAE Open Water Races

PHOENIX – Some heavy hitters within the USA Swimming open water community voice their plans to boycott a UAE open water race in the upcoming February issue of Swimming World Magazine.

FINA, just more than four years after the 2010 death of then 26-year-old Fran Crippen in Fujairah, UAE during a FINA open water event, has decided to schedule a 10K race as part of its Marathon World Cup series. The swim is slated for March 13, with plans to run a “test event” on Feb. 22 to make sure the course is safe.

In anticipation of this decision, Swimming World reached out to USA Swimming along with a host of open water dignitaries as part of a February issue centered around open water safety and the tragedies that can occur when safety is not taken seriously.

USA Swimming wasted no time in providing a statement from Executive Director Chuck Wielgus stating that his organization will have nothing to do with any open water event held in UAE.

“USA Swimming is disappointed in the decision to host an open water race in the same country where Fran Crippen tragically died,” Wielgus told Swimming World in a statement. “The USA Swimming family still mourns Fran’s loss, and as such we have no plans to support or send athletes to an open water event in the UAE.”

After Crippen’s death in 2010, USA Swimming enacted support protocols for professional open water events where the organization would send a support coach with Americans who decided to compete in FINA-level events overseas. While USA Swimming cannot force a professional swimmer to not pursue financial gains to be made on the FINA open water circuit, it can withdraw its support and has put all swimmers on notice that it intends to do so.

The February issue also contains intense responses from Crippen’s former coach Bill Rose of Mission Viejo among others all supporting a full boycott of any UAE-based open water event.

Swimming World open water correspondent Steve Munatones has a particularly damning statement detailing how FINA has put Ayman Saad in charge of organizing the UAE event after being the man responsible for the 2010 FINA event in Fujairah where the only fatality in FINA’s 107-year existence occurred. Saad, who never was sanctioned for his role in Crippen’s death, not only escaped the tragedy with no punishment, he was moved up into the Technical Open Water Swimming Committee by FINA in 2013.

FINA, however, has stood firm that no country should be permanently denied the chance to host events because of past problems.

“You cannot banish for life a federation where this happens,” FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu told ESPN.com. “This is very sensitive, a big tragedy, but there are deaths and accidents in other sports and the races are still there. For sure, there were mistakes on the course [in 2010]. They will take all the necessary steps so no one can disappear like that again.”

Swimmers who decide to bypass the UAE event will have an alternative race to attend in March as the Crippen Cup 10K Marathon Invitational, sponsored by the Fran Crippen Elevation Foundation, will take place in Fort Myers, Fla., on March 28. While the total prize money is half that of a FINA World Cup event with $10,000 on the line in Florida and $20,000 in the UAE, swimmers still have a chance to make a paycheck without the heartache of swimming where Crippen died.

To make sure you receive a copy of the landmark February issue of Swimming World Magazine, subscribe today. If the issues surrounding Crippen’s death and FINA’s response to it just four years later mean something to you, this edition of the magazine is the one for you.

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Bryan Finlay

9 years ago

It’s normal policy that after such an accident then the organizers would be expected to display and prove the effectiveness the changes they have made to their system – BEFORE they would ever be awarded another competition at such a high level.

Greg Johnson

9 years ago

FINA is contaminated from the top down. Create a new world order for open water and all swimming events. It’s time!