Egypt has removed the leadership of its swimming federation and has referred senior swimming officials for criminal prosecution over the death of 12-year-old swimmer Youssef Mohamed, who drowned during the Egyptian National Under-12 Championships earlier this month.
Among those referred include the president and board members of the Egyptian Swimming Federation, its executive director, the head of the competitions committee, the meet director, the chief referee, and three members of the lifeguard team. They are accused of ‘negligence and dereliction of duty in violation of their professional responsibilities’ in their safety protocols at the championship.
On December 2, Mohamed was underwater for more than 10 minutes before lifeguards noticed after going unconscious during his heat of the 50 backstroke.
Yasser Idris, the head of Egypt’s swimming federation, is also the head of the national Olympic committee. He is also a Vice President of World Aquatics.
The Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sport has appointed an interim committee to manage the committee and has contacted World Aquatics to oversee that interim group and ensure compliance with international regulations. Olympic regulations generally do not allow government interference with the management of sporting organizations, though in practice those rules have many exceptions.
Initial claims from the swimming federation accused the young swimmer of using performance enhancing drugs or suffering from a pre-existing medical condition, both claims that the swimmer’s father denied, according to the Egypt Independent.
A tragic and devastating accident.
The incident occurred immediately after the athlete completed his race, he touched the wall and sank to the bottom. It was the final heat of the session. At the time, three lifeguards, two paramedics, and an ICU doctor were stationed poolside, all contracted by the federation to cover the entire competition.
According to the prosecutor’s statement, the athlete remained underwater for approximately 3.5 minutes before being noticed by a breaststroker during a 4×50m IM record-breaking attempt, which began after the last heat had concluded. For clarity: the federation has never mentioned performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in any official communication, nor have any of its representatives. Claims suggesting otherwise were false rumors circulated on social media.
The… Read more »
“Initial claims from the swimming federation accused the young swimmer of using performance enhancing drugs or suffering from a pre-existing medical condition”
WTAF.
Falsely accusing a dead child.
It was fake news circulating in the media. No official in their right mind will ever make a claim like that a after the death of a child. The prosecutor asked for autopsy and tox report as routine part of the investigation. Somehow that turned into claims and theories about the federation.
Jesus. Absolutely awful behavior on the Federation’s part. Terrible.
Tragic regardless of the court outcome, heart goes out to the family.
By no means am I trying to blame the child, but it’s hard for me to envision how something like this could have happened? For American club meets, we would have warm ups, races and cool downs – if the child was racing someone would have for sure seen them go under, so that means it would have been during warm ups/cool downs.
I can’t imagine the pools weren’t packed at a national meet – did none of the other swimmers bother to report an unconscious body in the pool?? Or maybe they swam under the bulk head where they couldn’t be seen?
It must have been the… Read more »
Please read the original article before making assumptions.
My bad, that changes everything. Total negligence on the lifeguards’ part – I did not imagine that could happen in an actual race. Would delete the original comment if I could
You are making too many assumptions. The original article stated that “Youssef Mohamed was swimming his heat of the 50 backstroke when he lost consciousness and sunk to the bottom of the pool.”
Swimming -like most sports-has a degree of danger- sadly we will never totally eliminate the risk of death or injury occurring.
Their initial defence was that the child was doping?????
What????
The lifeguard(s) of that zone will likely see criminal charges. The head guard/meet director only if things like rest and coverage rotations weren’t followed.
The federation will likely see a civil suit. And likely made worse if PEDs weren’t a part of this due to their libel/slander.
All thoughts based on US judicial system.
Heart breaking no mater what.
As a person that certified lifeguards professionally in a former life, way too many think of it as babysitting until something happens.
As someone who was also a lifeguard, I completely agree that too many people treat lifeguards like babysitters, but that isn’t the case here. The child was swimming in a competitive pool, doing actual races. It was an officially organized event and the child participated as he should have. This is not a babysitting gig. The fact that it happened during a race makes this even more so the lifeguards fault, as even for young kids, during a race there is one swimmer per lane. Even if this was a huge pool and there are 10 lanes, there are only 10 children to watch. Any lifeguard that cannot handle 10 children in a pool should not be a lifeguard at… Read more »
Just like babysitting in a way ; 99% of the time you wonder why you are even here since everything goes well, and the 1% reminds you why you are
I would always say the similar thing when kids signed up to do guard training. Their parents would tell them how good they would get paid for doing very little.
You get paid awful for the 1% of time you will need to really use this. And it is highly likely that it will leave scars if you aren’t ready for it.
But just like with driving, it is too easy to think that it won’t be you in the wreck.
I had an experience where I was not able to breathe right and stopped just before the end of my race. I watched the lifeguard just stare at me while I tried to steady my breathing. He was thoroughly yelled at after that.
The swimmer completed his race(the last heat of the session) and sank to the bottom of the pool. No one noticed. Not the other swimmers, referees, lifeguards, coaches, or parents. More than 100 people were within 100 feet, yet no one saw. Mins later, a record-breaking 4×50 IM relay attempt began. All eyes were on the pool. A backstroker dove into lane 5, unaware that a swimmer was drowning in lane 7. The water was crystal clear—not turbid. Finally, the breaststroker spotted him while approaching the wall.
It felt as if everyone in that pool area went blind at the same time. Shock rippled through the venue; how could this happen? We were all there.
There were two paramedics with… Read more »