2014 Virtual World Championships
Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr
By David Rieder
BROOKLYN, New York, August 28. WITH the Asian Games in the books, let’s revisit the 2014 Virtual World Championships. Without one long course meet for the all of world’s top swimmers to focus on, most countries focus on either the Asian Games, Pan Pacific Championships, European Championships, or Commonwealth Games. New entries to the Virtual World Championships include swimmers from China, Japan, South Korea, and Kazakhstan.
Our “Virtual World Championships” include the top eight times recorded in one of these three major international finals. Times from prelims and semi-finals will not count, and only two entries per FINA-recognized country will be included. We do make note of B-final times from Pan Pacs that would finish among the top eight here, but those times do not count towards the final eight.
Our list will include all forty pool events contested at the World Championships. Note that the 50s of stroke were not contested at Pan Pacs, and the off-Olympic distances (women’s 1500 and men’s 800) were not contested at the Commonwealth Games or Asian Games.