Michael Phelps’ North Baltimore Aquatic Club Deals With New Challenge: 14-Year-Old’s Death
Paging Michael Phelps in Brazil: Onde Você Está (Where Are YOU) on Child Sex Abuse in Swimming?
November 2, 2012What’s Known So Far About the Death of Louis Lowenthal, 14-Year-Old Swimmer at Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman’s North Baltimore Aquatic Club
November 4, 2012Yesterday, even as I was calling out Michael Phelps to speak up about the sex abuse scandal that has claimed the legacy of North Baltimore Aquatic Club founder Murray Stephens, news reports surfaced of the sudden death of a 14-year-old boy who was swimming at a NBAC practice session last Sunday.
The Baltimore Sun account of the incident in which Louis Lowenthal lost his life is at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/towson/ph-tt-lowenthal-1107-20121101,0,4905655.story.
California swimmer-blogger Tony Austin, at http://scaq.blogspot.com, is raising aggressive questions about what happened and why NBAC’s owners, Phelps and Bob Bowman, are not more visible in dealing with what is, at minimum, a trauma for their community.
Without yet knowing much about this tragedy, I do find it grotesque that Phelps was preening for the cameras on an Olympic PR junket in Brazil while young Lowenthal, who lapsed into a coma on the deck of the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, was expiring on Wednesday.
Irv Muchnick