Competing at an Olympic Games is virtually every swimmer’s dream come true and former Alabama swimmer Kristel Vourna had thought her dream was realized for a 2nd time.
Having already competed for her native country Greece at the 2012 Olympic Games, finishing 12th in the 100m butterfly, Vourna was recently given an invitation by swimming’s world governing body, FINA, to compete for Greece once again, this time around in Rio. However, just 8 days later on July 14th, FINA told Vourna that the invitation was an ‘administrative error’ and the 24-year-old’s Olympic Games invitation was a mistake.
Dimitris Diathesopoulos, head of the Greek Swimming Federation, voiced his dissatisfaction with his swimmer’s situation, stating, “an athlete’s biggest dream is to take part in the Olympic Games. No one can retract such a thing. It is unforgivable and it can ruin the soul and the vision of an athlete.”
For Vourna, the swimmer is quoted as saying, “Unfortunately people’s mistakes are always paid by other people.”
Vourna swam at the University of Alabama from 2011 to 2015, redshirting 2013-14 due to injury. She is the Greek national record holder in the women’s 50m and 100m butterfly events.
That gives me hope I’ll get a FINA invitation to Geneva . I could stand around with a glass of champers . I once did a silver service course & know the 16 courses of a proper French pig out. I can mumble a swissfrenchgerman , can do franglais , pidgineeeenglish & even talk yards to the Americans.
FINA; crushing dreams since…
Well, in this case the greek federation also could have taken a closer look, as well as the swimmer herself, as there is already one greek swimmer with the A-Cut… so no swimmer with a B-Cut can be invited anymore. This was an obvious mistake. In the first place of course one FINA should never have made, given the fact that there have been only 26 invitations, a check could be done her in 15 minutes for all of those invitations, if you know your own rules, that is. But who guarantess that there are not more mistakes made? AFAIK, there is no official document citing who has been invited in which race, and for some swimmers out there this… Read more »
I’m a bit confused wouldn’t she not have been able to swim since Greece already has an A cut swimmer in the 100 fly?
It was not a mistake. Switzerland has better connections from Greece in FINA and they managed to change the decision and take the quota from the greek federation. Dimitris Diathesopoulos, the president of the greek federation is also a member of FINA bureau but he preferred to be good with Mr Marculescu, instead of stand by his athlete.
As I wrote above, off course it is a mistake, given that Anna Ntountounaki competes in the 100 fly where she has the A-Cut. If she is confirmed as taking part in this race (and it is her only A-Cut, so she cannot swim any other race), no greek swimmer with a B-cut can be invited. If Anna’s place is not confirmed by the Greek federation, only then Kristel could be invited.
And off course for the swimmer this is a very bad situation… I heard she already stopped swimming and started again, just to find out that something went wrong…
The least they can do is let her swim anyway.
Just when you think FINA couldn’t be more incompetent…
Remember, you can’t spells incompetent without F-I-N-A…