Photo Courtesy: Joao Marc Bosch
MOSCOW, Russia, October 3. At the pre-meet press conference of the FINA World Cup stop in Moscow, FINA confirmed today that the 2015 circuit will include a stop in France.
Paris had been a regular stop on the tour since the inception of the World Cup in 1983, but has not hosted a World Cup since 2002 when it served as the seventh of nine stops that also included East Meadow, N.Y.
FINA also stated that there is a high likelihood that France would remain on the schedule for future years.
No city has been chosen at this point in time.
The press conference also included 2014 points leaders Katinka Hosszu and Chad le Clos in attendance.
Maria Dobysheva contributed to this report.
At the last French trials, people were talking about Chartres as the host city. This is the pool where the 2012 European short course champs were held.
Why are so many of the World Cup meets hosted in areas that does not bring in a lot of high performance swimmers? There are a few really fast once at all the meets, but what has happened to the level of competition that used to exist at many of the meets in Europe, such as Berlin?
As part of the continued investment into professionalizing the FINA World Cup tour, each host has to come to the table with a lot more money than just a normal hosting cost.
So, the places that are regularly on the tour are those places that have the ability to find this extra money.