Correction: a previous version of this report inadvertently converted from Mexican pesos to US dollars instead of Argentine pesos. The conversion has been corrected.
A 17-year-old swimmer was seriously injured on the final day of the Argentine Championships after a scary collision during the warm-up.
Matías Bottoni dove into the warm-up pool and collided with another swimmer, resulting in him fracturing his cervical vertebrae and leaving him unable to move his arms or legs.
Bottoni was scheduled to go into emergency surgery on Monday and a fundraiser has been set up to help his family pay for the medical expenses.
Reports are that the procedure and recovery will cost 60 million Argentine pesos, which is just over $53,000 USD.
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Bottoni, a native of the Argentine city of Rosario, competes for the Echesortu Fútbol Club and was slated to represent Argentina at the 2025 Junior Pan American Games this coming August.
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Through the first four days of the long course competition, Bottoni raced the 100 breast (1:12.48), 100 fly (59.48), 200 IM (2:16.87) and 400 IM (4:48.33), and he had qualified for the final of the 200 fly (2:13.88) on Saturday morning before suffering his injury prior to the evening session.
thanks for sharing this
Oh man this sucks jeez hope he recovers
Terrible, just terrible. Praying for a speedy recovery! I was wondering though, in Canada it is a law that you must jump in feet-first or else you will be suspended from the meet. Is that only in Canada? Or is it world wide?
There are rules like this all over the place, but they don’t really get enforced because nobody wants to be the next target of an Owen Lloyd-level national media assault for disqualifying a swimmer for breaking a rule.
Argentine or Mexican peso???
I hope the surgery goes well and he recovers quick.
Hopefully people take note to be careful when entering pools.
This is a terrible tragedy. NEVER dive into the warm-up pool, only jump in FEET FIRST. Even when you have a designated lane for dives, your coach and you should LOOK first. I almost witnessed a tragedy similar to this one time, luckily the swimmer diving in missed the swimmer in the lane by a few inches. This can be avoided by taking an extra moment to be safe.