Andrea Fuentes, Spain’s most decorated artistic swimmer and now the nation’s head coach, has spoken candidly about the pervasive issue of emotional and physical abuse in elite sport, drawing from her own experiences and observations across global disciplines. In a recent interview promoting her book “Mentalidad, propósito, pasión,” Fuentes emphasized that abuse is not isolated to any one country or sport but is a systemic issue requiring urgent attention.
“There is a lot of emotional and physical abuse in sport,” Fuentes stated plainly. “I don’t speak only of Spain; I speak of the whole world. If you go to China or Russia, you’re shocked, and for now, they win in some events in our sport due to the fact that they leverage methods that are not acceptable to me.” Her comments come amid growing scrutiny of training methodologies in artistic swimming, gymnastics, and other aesthetic sports where extreme physical demands are often paired with intense psychological pressure.
Fuentes, who won four Olympic medals for Spain between 2008 and 2016, referenced her time training under former head coach Anna Tarrés not as a critique of that era but as context for her broader mission. “I don’t speak against what I lived with Anna Tarrés; I speak against what is currently done in other countries and not only in our sport,” she clarified. “It was seen in rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics… There is so much emotional abuse, and sometimes physical.”
Her stance is not a rejection of rigor but a redefinition of it. “This doesn’t contradict demanding excellence. This is elite sport. People confuse having respect and good rapport with relaxing, and it’s not like that. It’s maximum demand, but within that maximum demand, I treat you as an adult, mature, capable person with a brain — not as a chess piece I use.”
Central to her coaching philosophy is the belief that mental strength outweighs physical talent. “I am convinced that the mind is much more powerful than your physical talent,” she said, a conviction that shaped her unconventional selection process when building the U.S. National team. She introduced personal interviews accounting for 20% of selection criteria — a first in elite sports — to assess athletes’ mindset, resilience, and alignment with her values before evaluating technical ability.
Fuentes’ approach has already yielded results. After taking over the U.S. Team, she guided them to a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics — a historic achievement for a program that had previously struggled to reach the podium. Her success stems not from replicating the high-volume, high-pressure models dominant in some nations but from fostering autonomy, self-awareness, and intrinsic motivation.
She recounted how early in her career, a psychologist told her she would never succeed due to her “different” personality — a label tied to her upbringing in an alternative school and her parents’ hippie lifestyle. “He said I wouldn’t want to beat anyone because it would make me feel bad,” she recalled. Ten years later, she stood on the Olympic podium with four medals, proving that success doesn’t require conforming to a narrow mold of aggression or ego.
Her journey includes moments of extreme vulnerability. One of the most harrowing occurred when her athlete Anita Álvarez lost consciousness during a routine at a World Cup event. Fuentes dove into the pool to rescue her, an act that went viral. Later, to understand Álvarez’s condition, Fuentes agreed to a medically supervised simulation with a Navy SEAL-affiliated physician to induce controlled hypoxia — a decision she described as “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a coach.” Álvarez later joined the U.S. Air Force and has since returned to the team.
Fuentes also addressed the troubling trend of extreme apnea training in artistic swimming, where athletes push breath-holding limits to gain competitive edge. “Our sport is going toward a dark side of apnea,” she warned. “In the last World Cup, seven swimmers fainted underwater. Everyone is doing the same thing, but when everyone goes with the current, it’s time to go against it.” Her response? A new routine titled “Hope,” featuring shorter breath-holds, heightened artistic expression, and a focus on emotional resonance over physical extremes — a deliberate counter-movement to what she sees as a dangerous norm.
Beyond the pool, Fuentes speaks to the identity crisis many athletes face post-retirement. “When we question what you want to be when you grow up, you answer with a profession. Then it’s: ‘Damn, what am I? If I’m not a journalist, what am I?’” She noted that for athletes, this crisis often hits around age 30, when elite careers end abruptly. “You have to be more than your sport. The sport should give you tools for life, not exit you needing years of therapy.”
Her daily practice of identifying three positive things before bed — even on hard days — reflects her emphasis on mental resilience. “Sometimes it’s hard to find three, but yes. On horrible days, when you realize there’s at least that small moment, you say, ‘Well, it wasn’t so bad,’ or ‘I learned this,’ or ‘This won’t happen again.’”
As Spain’s head coach, Fuentes is implementing her athlete-centered model nationally, prioritizing communication, mutual respect, and long-term development over short-term results. She credits improved parent engagement — not as overseers but as allies — for helping shift team culture from conflict to harmony, which in turn attracted sponsorship and institutional support.
Her message is clear: excellence demand not come at the cost of well-being. “I want to go carefully. Not against what I lived with Anna Tarrés, but against what is currently done elsewhere.” For Fuentes, the future of sport lies not in breaking athletes down but in building them up — mind, body, and spirit.
The next step in her journey is the upcoming European Championships, where her team will evaluate whether the innovative “Hope” routine meets the threshold for competition. Fans and followers can track her team’s progress through official channels of the Spanish Swimming Federation and her personal platforms, where she continues to advocate for a healthier, more humane elite sports culture.
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