World Aquatics is tweaking its media policy for the final World Cup stop this weekend in Budapest, Hungary.
Only winners of the crown — those who have won the same event at all three World Cup stops in Berlin, Athens, and Budapest — will be interviewed after the race. In non-crown events, swimmers will be selected randomly “in order to hear more voices from a wide range of athletes.”
There are seven swimmers seeking World Cup crowns, which also come with a $10,000 bonus. Australia’s Kaylee McKeown (50 back/100 back/200 back) and China’s Qin Haiyang (50 breast/100 breast/200 breast) are eyeing three crowns apiece. Italy’s Thomas Ceccon (100 free/100 back), Lithuania’s Danas Rapsys (200 free/400 free), Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom (50 free/50 fly), Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey (100 free/200 free), Australia’s Lani Pallister (800 free/1500 free), Zhang Yufei (100 fly/200 fly), and Matt Sates (200 fly/200 IM) could take home two crowns each. America’s Michael Andrew (50 back), New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather (400 free), Lithuania’s Ruta Meilutyte (50 breast), and Dutchwoman Tes Schouten (200 breast) are also in the running for a crown.
Rapsys may have a particularly tough time clinching his crown with reigning 400 free world champion Sam Short making his World Cup debut in Budapest.
McKeown and Qin emerged atop the standings after the first two stops as they are both on track to become overall World Sup series champions and take home the $100,000 bonus that comes with that victory.
Friday’s finals session begins at 11 a.m. EST.
I am thinking of that in this way they can avoid to interviewing Belorussian athletes…
Maybe we’ll finally get to hear a swimmer interview in which something even remotely substantive is said. I must say, the prospect excites me.
You obviously haven’t been listening – there have been some good interviews. Not all, but some.
Zhang Yufei is also in the mix for multiple crowns…
Pallister is also in the mix for the distance crown
No, because it was 800 in Berlin and 1500 in Athens, not the same distance
It still counts.
World Aquatics said on Twitter that winning the three distance events counts as a crown
WA made the choice to mix up the distance events so the women do 800,1500, 800 and the men 1500, 800, 1500. Sweeping those 3 events counts!
Nice idea….we tend to hear from the same half dozen people all the time- what new does McKeown (for example) have to say, and she must get sick of the same questions every time. Great to share the spotlight on all the hard working swimmers.
Ironically she is likely to be interviewed for all 3 of her races despite this change.
This is without a doubt to limit / stop people who are passionate about Israel Palestine conflict. Especially after Sameh’s win.
Eh, I doubt it would stop them.
I was thinking the same thing. Then I was thinking… Budapest – probably don’t want to p off Orbán, since WA lovess his autocracy so mich, they’re actually moving there.
Or maybe Youtube got 100 complaints on Sameh’s comment in the stream.
Either way, it smells of wanting to control who gets to speak and what is being said. I very much doubt it will be completely random who gets interviewed. I bet no Israeli, Palestinian (and other Arab and Muslim) and Ukranian (are there any at this WC?) swimmers get to speak. Just in case…
the palestine machine has also descended on the WA mens swimmer of the year post. there are so many comment saying that hafnaoui is the best, despite marchand and qin having objectively better results this year.
back when WA announced their overall world championships awards in july, the only complaints were about qin and australia not winning (despite qin not even being tagged in that post), but now the chinese comments have been drowned out and hafnaoui has 71% of the votes to qin’s 7%