FINA has given the Mexican Swimming Federation until February 10th to complete three tasks, or it risks losing the right to host the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, several Spanish-language media outlets are reporting.
The three conditions are:
- Forming an organizing committee,
- Legalizing an organizing committee, and
- Form a trust to manage the event’s expenses.
Guadalajara was chosen as the host of the 17th edition of the World Aquatics Championships back in 2011, announced simultaneously with Kazan, the host of this year’s event.
At the time, FINA committed to announcing both hosts if they “thought they had two outstanding candidates.”
Guadalajara has a newly-built Scotiabank Aquatics Center, which was built for the 2011 Pan American Games. It’s capacity is 3,593 spectators (expanded to 5,000 for the Pan Am Games) and includes two 50-meter pools and a diving well.
The city is due to be the first in the Western Hemisphere to host the World Championships since Montreal in 2005.
The third city that was a finalist to host either year was Hong Kong.
With the Masters Worlds being right afterwards I see Montreal as a better choice than Toronto. Drapeau, Point Claire, Olympic Park and Claude Robilliard are all good venues. For OW you have the rowing basin. Montreal is the only place to have recently hosted both the FINA worlds and FINA masters. With some changes (like the bathrooms at the temp pool) it could be pulled off easy.
What about Toronto? The New Pan Am pool can be used for Diving and synchronized swimming, high diving and open water swimming on the harbour, water polo at the Markham Pan Am Centre and finally the swimming events at the Air Canada Centre (with a temporary pool that was seen in Barcelona).
The Mexican swimming federation does not have the ability to organize an event of this magnitude . The administrative team is composed of people who know NOTHING about swimming and is plagued with corruption. If we take an international meet as precedent, the Central American Games happened in Mexico last year. Delegations LEFT because of poor conditions, the athlete village wasn’t finished , it was a joke. Do the swimmers a favor and award the meet to another country.
You’ve got no idea! Central American games happened in such a hard moment for Mexico (I’m pretty sure you don’t care about that) and Veracruz is one of most affected states because of violence. Please stop watching TV and movies and be welcome in Mexico. You’ll find out that Mexicans is not only poor people with moustache trying to cross the border. Mexico is rich (there is more money than you can imagine) but unequal… and Guadalajara, well, is beautiful, strong, safe and completely able to manage a competition like this and more! Please come and visit us, you are always welcome in Mexico, even though we are not always welcome in some places.
You’ve got no idea! Central American games happened in such a hard moment for Mexico (I’m pretty sure you don’t care about that) and Veracruz is one of most affected states because of violence. Please stop watching TV and movies and be welcome in Mexico. You’ll find out that Mexico is not only poor people with moustache trying to cross the border. Mexico is rich (there is more money than you can imagine) but unequal… and Guadalajara, well, is beautiful, strong, safe and completely able to manage a competition like this and more! Please come and visit us, you are always welcome in Mexico, even though we are not always welcome in some places.
Paris one day? 😆
Perhaps one day we’ll have a big pool to host big international competitions. 😥
Meanwhile, I suggest the Stade de France. It would be funny.
And I can’t still believe USA has never hosted LCM swimming world championships or track and field outdoor world championships while USA is by far the most dominant nation in these 2 sports. 🙄
I understand the reasoning behind FINA’s decision but the most alarming thing to me about the organization is that they have double standards. I’ll explain why: let’s take worlds away from the Mexicans but lets allow the Brazilians to host swimming at midnight. Is the white elephant ever going to wake up and put athletes first? After all, without us they would be nothing. That’s my rant for the day, thank you for reading (I know both championships are despairingly different but I’m still upset over the fact that swimmers at Rio will be going to bed at 2AM if they are lucky, just to fit into prime time on a US network).
Bring it back to Montreal.
No one wants another tragic situation…
Yeah. As cursed as the FINA Aquatics Championships proper have been over the years, Montreal was the only place someone died over the meet. I can’t see an American venue willing to play FINA money games, so I’ll suggest Berlin who, IIRC, was the other option when the UAE bailed on the 2013 meet that eventually went to Barcelona. It would be better than mainland China yet again, who I’m sure is shortlisted for any relocated event.
Maybe Berlin Brandenburg airport will finally be open by 2017 and they’d have a shiny new arrivals hall and all for competitors.
I wonder what kind of loonies at FINA who chose Guadalajara.
Hong Kong should have been chosen instead.
aswimfan – as strange as it sounds, there were some financial concerns with Hong Kong. Specifically, the government wouldn’t guarantee the event financially.
Ach so. It is indeed strange and not strange; strange because Hongkong is such a rich territory where it should be easy to raise money from private money and not strange because Hongkong is a laissez faire economy where the government would not financially guarantee for such frivolous activity.
I meant private sector.
I would rather they move them out of Kazan for a whole list of reasons. Starting with Putin and ending with doping. Not to mention a list of atrocities in between.
Gullible Sean. Sun reader?