Mexican Aquatics Allegedly Face Olympic Ban Following Inconsistencies

Following a series of inconsistencies in the run-up to the Mexican Swimming Federation‘s presidential election this year, FINA, the global governing body for the sport, has reportedly issued a warning.

The news comes as FINA allegedly found some irregularities in a series of administrative documents related to the Mexican Swimming Federation (FMN), according to Mexican news outlet Revista Proceso.

Per that report, Mexico’s Olympic eligibility in both diving and artistic swimming for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games now depends on whether the national governing body for the sport complies with two requirements.

On one hand, FINA has requested the Mexican Swimming Federation to provide a version of their current chamber in the English language, Proceso reported. Further, FINA asked that the FMN cancel its upcoming presidential election proceedings slated for Dec. 15.

FINA has requested an English translation of the document on six occasions since 2013, the report says.

Since the summer of 2019, the Mexican Swimming Federation has run into several controversies under Todorov’s presidency.

Resulting from a series of disagreements between Todorov and Mexican Sports Commissioner Ernesto D’Alessio, Mexico faced a ban from both the 2019 Gwangju World Championships as well as the now postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The controversy came after Mexican Federal Sports Commissioner Ernesto D’Alessio tried to intervene in the selection criteria posted by the Mexican Swimming Federation for the Games.

In response, FINA issued a statement asking for both parties to reach a mutual agreement.

Then, in September, we reported that Mexico faced a penalty over the swim caps used by the country during the Lima 2019 Panamerican Games.

As a follow-up, in October of last year Todorov accused the federation’s vice-president Rodolfo Zarco Rodriguez in light of an aggression that allegedly occurred during a championship meet in the Mexican region of Puebla. Such aggression would have taken place Oct. 5, 2019.

Scarcely one month before that incident, Mexican news outlet Revista Proceso leaked a list of properties owned by the Todorov family, and how that list does not coincide with the low income that the family has historically reported.

In February of this year, we reported that the federation was accused of concealing their selection criteria for Tokyo. The federation revealed the selection criteria for three of the four aquatics disciplines -diving, synchronized swimming and open water swimming. Such criteria were turned in at the last minute while missing the standards for swimming.

Just a few weeks after that incident, former Mexican junior national team member Estefania Garcia took to social media and launched allegations of corruption and abuse that had affected her sister, Mexican national synchronized swimming team member Teresa Alonso Garcia.

Alonso Garcia alleged that Mexican artistic swimming head coach Adriana Loftus psychologically abused athletes. At the time, some were also critical of her appointing of her husband, Alberto Calderon, as Mexico’s team psychologist for the 2017 FINA World Championships.

The athletes turned to Mexican Sports Commission (CONADE) president Ana Guevara for help, although Guevara currently faces charges of her own as she is accused of alleged illicit association, bribery and for reportedly falsifying official documents, among others.

When it comes to Todorov, FMN‘s president currently faces several lawsuits and is being investigated by the Mexican government, although legal proceedings were brought to a stall due to COVID-19.

SwimSwam has reached out to the Mexican Swimming Federation, CONADE and FINA for comment but has not yet received a response from any of them.