Three days prior to the start of the 17th FINA World Championships in Budapest, the FINA Bureau held today its meeting in the Magyar capital. After warmly expressing its appreciation and gratitude to the Organising Committee of the FINA showcase in Hungary, the Bureau took the following main decisions:
– Approval of a set of rules concerning the conduct of the General and Technical Congresses, to be held also in Budapest, starting on July 12 with the Open Water Swimming and Diving/High Diving gatherings. Related with the voting procedure, show of hands will be used for the Technical Congresses, while delegates at the General Congress will decide through paper secret ballot;
– Approval of the Revision Committee and Scrutineers for the General Congress, to be held on July 22, 2017. For the first one, it will be comprised of Mr Onat Yildrim, Mr Maurice Watkins, Mr Richard Young and Chief Olatokunbo Thomas (all members of the FINA Legal Committee). The Scrutineers (one per continent) will be: Africa – Mr Mustapha Larfaoui; Americas – Mr Eldon Godfrey; Asia – Mr Qiuping Zhang; Europe – Mr Bartolo Consolo; Oceania – Mr Christopher Fydler;
– For the FINA Technical Water Polo Congress, the Bureau approved the proposal to only submit to the vote of delegates two changes, following the recent IOC decision to raise the number of teams in the Olympic women’s water polo tournament, from eight to 10. These rules include the 11-player rule for the constitution of each team (men and women) at Olympic level, and the confirmation in the technical rules of a 10-team Olympic women’s tournament. After Budapest, the Bureau approved the organisation of a FINA World Water Polo Conference in the end of 2017 to discuss and propose new ways of enhancing the first Olympic team sport in the five continents. Once the proposals will be finalised by the new Technical Water Polo Committee to be nominated in Budapest, FINA will call an Extraordinary Congress to validate these changes;
– Approval of a FINA anti-doping educational programme, aimed at raising awareness and information about anti-doping procedures among athletes and National Federations;
– Award of the 2018 edition of the FINA World Junior Synchronised Swimming Championships to the city of Budapest, Hungary;
– Acknowledgement of the four candidates for the organisation of the 2022 and 2024 FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) and FINA World Aquatics Convention: Budapest (HUN), Chinese Taipei (TPE), Hong Kong (HKG) and Kazan (RUS). The decision on this matter will be taken by the FINA Bureau on July 17, 2017;
– Starting from the 2019 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships, FINA will provide financial assistance to the National Federations taking part in this event;
– Appreciation for the positive reports received from the organisers of the next FINA World Swimming Championships (25m), in Hangzhou (CHN) in 2018, and the FINA World Championships, to be held in Gwangju (KOR) in 2019. Moreover, the Bureau acknowledged the excellent co-operation with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games organisers and expressed its satisfaction for the recent IOC decision to increase the number of swimming events and improve the number of teams at the women’s water polo tournament.
Press release courtesy of FINA.