World Aquatics (formerly FINA), the international governing body for six disciplines of aquatic sports, has announced Netanya, Israel as the host of the 2023 World Junior Swimming Championships. The 9th edition of the meet will be hosted from September 4-9, 2023, and over 600 swimmers from more than 100 national federations are expected to compete.
The event will be hosted at the Wingate Institute, which is the centerpiece of Israeli swimming. The facility features both a 50-meter competition pool and a separate 50-meter training pool.
These World Junior Championships will be a test of the event’s endurance after a meet last year that was missing a number of traditional powers, including the US, Australia, and Great Britain. Most of those nations pulled out at some point between when the event was still destined for Russia and when FINA announced Lima, Peru as the new host.
But the absence of some nations didn’t mean the absence of big swims. There were nine new World Junior Records set during the meet, including from Romania’s David Popovici (who would set a regular World Record earlier in the summer) and Portugal’s Diogo Ribeiro, who turned heads with his World Junior Record in the 50 fly.
This continues AQUA’s push into the Middle East, the home region of the organization’s president Husain Al-Musallam. Al-Musallam is normally quoted in FINA press releases, but he is not quoted in the World Aquatics press release about the World Junior Swimming Championships. Kuwait and Israel formally have no diplomatic relations, and Kuwait refuses entry to Israeli passport holders. Unnamed Kuwaiti officials in 2020 said that they would be “the last to normalize relations” with Israel in Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas.
Al-Musallam is also the Director General of the Olympic Council of Asia and the Secretary General of the Kuwait Olympic Committee.
While Israel has never-before hosted a FINA/World Aquatics World Championship in pool swimming, the broader Middle East region has hosted many recent championships. That includes the 2013 World Junior Championships (Dubai); and the World Short Course Swimming Championships in 2010 (Dubai), 2012 (Istanbul), 2014 (Doha), and 2021 (Abu Dhabi). Israel did host the 2018 Open Water World Junior Swimming Championships.
The World Aquatics World Junior Swimming Championships were first held in 2006 in Rio de Janeiro (BRA). Subsequent editions of the biennial event followed in Monterrey (MEX) in 2008; Lima (PER) in 2011; Dubai (UAE) in 2013; Singapore (SGP) in 2015; Indianapolis (USA) in 2017; Budapest (HUN) in 2019; and Lima (PER) in 2022.
Netanya has a population of about 230,000 people and is the 7th-largest city in Israel. It sits on the Mediterranean sea, about 30 kilometers north of Israel’s largest city Tel-Aviv.
What was the original venue or is this an intervened WJSC?
It seems to be a similar fast-organized event than Budapest last year.
#FreePalestine this is insane to me
Wouldn’t get this made up “Palestine” even for free
It’s either Qatar Kazan or this 💀
Go visit and see how beautiful Israel is
Why? #FreePalestine
Have to get meets out of Russia, but having it in an apartheid state is cool.
Ever been? It is anything but apartheid. You disgrace the memory of those who actually lived through apartheid.
It’s not hard to find influential South Africans that lived through apartheid labelling Israel an apartheid state. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/29/comment
If you have ever been you’d realize how silly you sound.
This is from a Far Left writer….
https://www.thedailybeast.com/israels-got-major-problems-but-its-not-an-apartheid-state
“Israel is not an “apartheid state.” According to Merriam-Webster, apartheid is a “racial segregation” and specifically, “a former policy of segregation and political, social and economic discrimination against the nonwhite majority in the Republic of South Africa.”
This definition is easy to dissolve: Israel does not have a racial segregation implemented by law. It’s an easy fact to check.
There are Arab citizens—citizens with full, equal rights—in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as in the Israeli court system, including the Supreme Court. There are Arab doctors,… Read more »
Like the Palestinians who are kicked from their homes and brutalized by the police and military?
like the 13 year old Palestinian boys and girls that stub and shoot innocent civilians just because they are jews?
I don’t know why it’s so hard for everyone to understand that both Palestinians and Israelis are treating the other poorly.
It’s that men rule the world that we all think that a competition over which side is committing the worse atrocities gets us any closer to a solution.
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us”
This quote sums up everything
What do you even know?
Do you mean Jordan?
Oh look. An American immigrant to Israel denying Palestinian identity.
https://embassies.gov.il/washington/Speakers-Guide/Society-and-Politics/Pages/Zaq-Harrison.aspx
Imagine….. the Jewish army and soldiers fighting and dying protecting Maronite Christians in Southern Lebanon from ethnic cleansing.
if you’re going to call me out at least pull up my good stuff
this was featured in Swimswam
http://www.olympicchoices.com
or my latest
https://jewbillyjournal.com/f/appalachia-antisemitism-my-latest-article-in-tablet
Palestine is free. Unfortunately it has terrorists for leaders that oppress their own people. And create propaganda that Israel is to blame, which couldn’t be more from the truth.
Hahahaha seems like you’re the one who is being influenced by propaganda.
Israel hosted the 2018 World Junior Open Water Championships in Eilat (Sept. 6-8).
You’re right, I should have specified pool swimming.