World Aquatics (formerly FINA) has announced a short three-meet schedule for the 2023 World Cup Series which will be held entirely in Europe in October. That matches the 2022 series as the shorter in the history of the World Cup, reduced from the 7-8 stops that have been the norm for most of its history, and the peak of 12 stops from 1998 through 2000.
This year’s meets will be held in Long Course Meters (a 50 meter pool) in preparation for the Olympic year, as compared to the usual 25 meter course. This has become tradition in the pre-Olympic years.
2023 FINA World Cup Series:
- October 6-8: Berlin, Germany
- October 13-15: Athens, Greece
- October 20-22: Budapest, Hungary
The stop in Athens is notable as it is the first stop ever in Greece in the 35-year history of the series. Berlin, last year’s only European stop, is on the opposite end of that spectrum: 2023 will be its 22nd hosting occasion, which is more than any other city:
- Berlin – 22
- Beijing – 15
- Paris – 14
- Moscow – 14
- Singapore – 13
- Stockholm – 12
This will be the 4th time that Budapest has hosted; aside from last year, they had hosted the previous three years, becoming a regular part of the FINA global event hosting rotation.
That means that the series won’t return to the US or Canada this year. Last year, Toronto hosted a meet for the first time since the inaugural series in 1988-1989, and the US hosted in Indianapolis for the first time since that same year. Canada had most-recently hosted in Edmonton in 2002-2003, and the US hosting in New York in 2005-2006.
The compact 2022 series worked well and seemed to engage audiences throughout, especially in overall series standings, better than prior years. It’s hard to know for sure how much of that was because of the smaller schedule and how much was because of the presence of some big stars from the US and Canada because two of the three stops were in North America, but the 2023 series entirely in Europe should help parse the two factors.
The meets will count as qualifying events for both the 2024 World Championships and the 2024 Olympic Games.
World Aquatics has not yet announced the prize money for the 2023 series, but last year, more than $1.1 million was awarded. Trinidad & Tobago’s Dylan Carter led the way with $160,000 earned, while American Beata Nelson was second with $152,000 registered to her name.
World aquatics aren’t even trying to help the sport anymore. With no ISL because of the war world aquatics has no competition so they are doing less then bare minimum to provide exposure for the sport. What happened to original format of 3 stops and 9 locations. Swimming really has the worst governing body of any sport
Sounds more like Europe Cup
Disappointingly short series given there’s not much happening this year after worlds (is ISL even happening?).
“world cup” lol
too bad no US stop.
yes, i wanted to see kate douglass as a professional breaking through the world cup
Is the World Cup LCM instead of SCM this year?
Yes. For once the meets will take place in 50m pools.
Yes. The pre-olympic year is always LCM.
Yep. I’ll make that more explicit.