FINA Postpones 2020 Swimming World Cup to 2021
FINA, the water sports international governing body, has announced on Monday that the 2020 World Cup will be cancelled to protect swimmers from contracting the corona-virus. The FINA World Cup is a swimming sporting event for each nation’s best swimmers, that is hosted across multiple countries in two-day clusters. It was initially cut down from six stops to just four stops, but has now been cancelled all together. Now FINA hopes to be able to push back the event to 2021, following the Olympics.
The new plan for the Swimming World Cup is for it to take place in the original six countries in three clusters. The first cluster will kick off in Singapore and Jinan, China on a yet-to-be-determined date in September. The next cluster will start in Berlin, Germany on October 1-3 and then move to Budapest, Hungary on October 7-9. Finally, the World Cup will make its rounds to Doha, Qatar on October 21-23 and finish in Kazan Russia on October 28-30.
FINA released a statement regarding the postponement of the event, stating:
“Despite the 2020 host cities of the Swimming World Cup continuously showing their interest to stage the competition this year, the recommendation of the FINA Task Force appointed to review the situation is to postpone it to next year in order to ensure the safety of the athletes and all stakeholders involved,”
The newly scheduled stops will host their competition in a 25-meter short course (SCM) pool in contrast to the Olympics which are swum in a 50-meter long course (LCM) pool and the American Collegiate season which is swum in a 25-yard short course (SCY) pool.
The 2021 World Cup has around 2.5 million dollars total as prize money across multiple events. Winners take home $150,000, runner ups take home $100,000, and bronze-place finishers take home $50,000. Furthermore, the World Cup will continue to serve as a qualifying meet for swimmers to punch their tickets to the 2021 World Championships (SCM). The Swimming World Championships, not to be confused with the World Cup series, is a prestigious international competition held every two years where the best in the world come together, not much different from the Olympics. It had also been postponed due to 2021 due to corona-virus, and is expected to return on December 13-18 in 2021.