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Fran Crippen, 26, was an
experienced distance swimmer.
His Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
family/friends and fellow swimmers
found it hard to believe on Monday
that the United Arab Emirates announced
"drowning" as the cause of the aspiring
Olympian's death.
USA Swimming, the U.S. competitive swimming
governing body, stated Monday that it would
do its own investigation, independent of a
probe by FINA, which staged the World Cup
event at al-Fujayrah.
"We are going to go through every avenue to
see how this could happen," Maddy Crippen-his
sister, herself a former Olympic swimmer.
"There should not be a drowning at a swimming
event," she continued. "He was at the top of
his game."
"Fran wanted to make sure that we were doing
everything right," she said. "He was going to
take that cause on himself. He wanted to be
the face of open water swimming."
"We have never researched our sport like other
sports have," Steven Munatones, a current member
of the FINA open water technical committee.
"There is no information on heat exhaustion in the
water," said Munatones. He, also, edits a web site
devoted to open water swimming.
Thomas Lurz, the German who won the al-Fujayrah event,
remarked on Sunday that the air/water temperatures
were dangerously high. Lurz said the water was at
least 86 degrees, but one official explained it was
84. Three other swimmers were hospitalized per reports.
"He loved what he was doing," his mother, Patricia
Crippen. "He loved to train."
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