According to several specific international swimming media, at the FINA (International Swimming Federation) meeting this Friday, it has been decided postpone the Fukuoka World Cup again until July 2023. The increase in COVID cases in Japan and the uncertainty over the Omicron variant has made this the best decision due to restrictions on international travel and the lack of flexibility of the Asian country, as he already demonstrated with all the problems and measures that surrounded the last Olympic Games.
Thus, the calendar of international competitions is once again retouched. In this 2022, in August the European Championships in Rome will be held in swimming, diving, open water and synchronized, while a month later the water polo will be held in Split. The Swimming World Cup will be scheduled for July (dates yet to be determined) while the next World Cup, which was to be held in Doha in November 2023, will be postponed to January 2024. Six months later the Olympic Games in Paris will take place.
A change of plans that, if confirmed, would compress the competition into just one year with two World Cups and a few Games, apart from the 2024 European Championship that could be postponed until after the Olympic event so as not to tighten the calendar any further. It would be the first time in history that the World Cup and the Olympic Games coincide in the same year.
Spanish swimming awaits with attention the confirmation by FINA to adapt its national competitions, taking into account that both the water polo leagues and the qualifying swimming championships were set to international calendars.