World Aquatics avoid boycott at Qatar 2024 meet with clause change
Swimming’s world governing body have agreed to a compromise concerning the 2024 World Championships in Qatar which will significantly reduce the workload on swimmers prior to the Paris Olympics.
Swimming
Don't miss out on the headlines from Swimming. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Australia’s swimmers have had a rare win outside the pool after the sport’s world’s governing body agreed to a significant compromise for the 2024 world championships in Qatar.
Scheduled to take place just five months before the Paris Olympics, most top international swimmers were planning to boycott the 2024 world titles because of growing concerns about out of touch administrators placing too many demands on them.
Because of a backlog caused by the pandemic, there are world championships locked in for four successive years – 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Australia’s swimmers also competed at the Commonwealth Games and hosted a shortcourse world championships, which Swimming Australia organised without consulting the Australian swimmers’ association.
Now, swimmers have had enough so to avert a mass boycott in 2024, FINA (now known as World Aquatics) introduced a sneaky clause – making Qatar the official qualifying event for the majority of the 16 spots in each of the seven Olympic swimming relay spots – which would effectively force competitors to go to the Gulf.
But after listening to the concerns of swimmers and coaches, instead of administrators, World Aquatics has agreed to a major backflip.
Instead, the top three finishers in each of the relays at the 2023 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan will qualify automatically for Paris.
The remaining 13 berths in each relay will be decided by the best times set either at Fukuoka or Doha, meaning teams that miss the top three in Fukuoka can still qualify for Paris without sending their best swimmers to the Middle East.
The policy change – which needed approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – has been welcomed by Australia’s swimmers and coaches, who place a high premium on relays.
While countries can qualify swimmers for the Olympics through their own national trials, relay berths are decided by the results from the world championships held the previous year.
Australia won six medals in relays at last year’s Tokyo Olympics and seven at this year’s world championships in Budapest.
Australia’s head coach Rohan Taylor said the Dolphins will send a full-strength team to Fukuoka then leave any decisions about Doha up to individuals.
“It‘s a logical way to go about it because of the cost to a lot of countries, it allows them to have a choice, particularly with the last couple of years and a lot of different additional meets being put on back to back,” he told News Corp.
“It gives a bit of breathing space but it also allows countries like us to have athletes who might want to go and compete, to go and race. So from that perspective it‘s good.
“In relation to the relays, if we‘re high enough ranked and we’re comfortable we’ll definitely sit on our times but we may need to send a relay unfortunately if we get disqualified.
“So I think it gives us some good flexibility to use the meet for coaches and athletes who want to go and race.
“Obviously, we‘ll sit on our relay times, but if we have enough over there and we need to swim a relay then we will do that but this gives us a lot of flexibility.”
More Coverage
Originally published as World Aquatics avoid boycott at Qatar 2024 meet with clause change
Australian star blown away as WR obliterated
Teenage swimming sensation Summer McIntosh has obliterated Aussie star Ariarne Titmus’ world record
Aussie swim king reveals key tweaks after shock coach split
Kyle Chalmers has made some key changes to his training and his life after parting ways with Peter Bishop following the Paris Games – and they’ll be on display at the swim trials in Adelaide.