A Voice for the Sport: The World Cup is Dead!
By Craig Lord
Do you doubt the headline of this article?
Then enter these old-timers into today’s World Cup pool to see how they would place: Pam Kruse, Martha Randall, Debbie Meyer, Karen Moras, Shane Gould, Shirley Babashoff, Karen Muir, Catie Ball, Cathy Carr, Galina Prozumenschikova, Ada Kok, Donna de Varona, Claudia Kolb. And on the men’s side: Alain Mosconi, Greg Charlton, Mark Spitz through Hans Fassnacht, Gunnar Larsson, Tom McBreen, Brad Cooper, Kurt Krumpholz, Rick DeMont, Michael Burton, Roland Matthes, John Hencken, David Wilkie, Kevin Berry, Gary Hall, Dick Roth to András Hargitay and other pacesetters of the Class of the ’60s and early ’70s.
“Hey, old-timers, take a look: half a century hence, your times are going to be good for a place in a final at a ‘World Cup’ in a level-deck pool with lane lines, blocks, goggles, full-time professional training programs and coaches, sports scientists and more—all part of an arsenal of performance-powering progress. What d’ya think?”
Cue virtual belly laughs of the greats for the very real belly flop that FINA has allowed the World Cup to become.
An overlay circa 1969/2019 might be mistaken for satire: results at the latest round of the FINA World Cup in Singapore would have had Shane Gould and Mark Spitz, heroes of the 1972 Olympics, still in vogue on the clock.
Tick, tock: Gould, 1973—sixth in the women’s 1500; Spitz, 1967 and the first world record of his career—fourth in the men’s 400 free. Take Australians and a handful of others out of the pool, and you have a local youth gala…not a World Cup.
In 2019, the event title is only true because all 200-plus FINA member nations may show up if they wish, regardless of whether the swimmers are traveling at the pace of the 1960s—60 years on as we approach 2020 and Tokyo comes into view as an Olympic city 56 years beyond de Varona, Schollander & Co.
What went wrong after all the promise of cars parked on deck as prizes at the start of a new “pro-era” in pools on a European circuit in the 1980s? This: FINA took over from 1988—and evolution stopped at allowing swimmers to receive pay. The program stayed, and grew and grew.
A complex points system was compounded by an insistence on towing the entire six -, then seven-, now eight-day World Championship program into the Cup’s two-day meets, while the globetrotting that was required of swimmers deterred participation because of cost and energy (including the carbon footprint kind of late). Four hours of heats—as well as finals lacking context or meaning beyond the narrow pool of the faithful and the few who saw their earning power soar—also made the Cup look and feel stale.
Ironically, Katinka Hosszu, who became a millionaire by a Cup format that suited her well, contributed to that feeling: one swimmer’s victory in every race on every stroke and every distance three seasons straight lacked the excitement of what makes swimming the true thrill it can be: racing.
FINA killed it and then sought to kill off the threat—namely the International Swimming League—until athletes intervened to back a new pro-tour, pledging a 50-50 share for athletes. The international federation’s response was to keep the Cup and bolt on a Champions’ Series that ended elite-level universality (the bedrock of votes needed to maintain governance status quo).
What should FINA do?
Think anew. Take advice. Consider a team-based, duel-style Clash of Continents, leave the championship program to the championship, replace “World” with “Development” Cup, and accept that the best 300 or so will be racing in the League in the latter part of each year from now on.
Yes, the World Cup is dead. Long live new and evolving showcases for swimming between the Olympics.
Craig Lord
Editor-in-Chief
Swimming World Magazine
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044 PREP SCHOOL DIRECTORY
055 GUTTERTALK
056 PARTING SHOT
Bridget Lin thoughts?
Joshua Zhang hmm it’s bc FINA isn’t listening to the athletes… Everyone’s competing at the ISL rn- good racing and a chance to earn money
Fina the old snobs hehehe