The Pieter van den Hoogenband Swim Stadium in Eindhoven has hosted many great meets, and in 2014 it will have the opportunity for another, as the stop for the 2014 IPC Swimming European Championships. The meet will run from August 4th-10th, with 500 athletes from 40 countries expected to participate.
This is the same site that hosted the IPC World Championships in 2010.
“We are delighted that Eindhoven will be the venue for the prestigious 2014 European Championships and are pleased to be working with them again to organise a major championships,” IPC CEO Xavier Gonzales said of the announcement. “The pool has long been a top-quality destination for elite-level swimming competitions and we are glad to be able to continue that legacy.
“We expect competition to be fierce ahead of the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow and following on from the last Euros in Berlin, where 31 out of the 36 participating countries took home at least one medal.”
The Europeans are the dominant swimming nations in IPC competition. For example, at the 2013 World Championships, Ukraine (85 medals), Russia (54 medals), and Great Britain (55 medals) dominated the tables, with the next-highest total tally being the Americans with 33. In total, the Europeans won 330/515 medals awarded at those World Championships (including 14 from the newly-awarded Dutch hosts of Euros).
That equates to just over 64% of the medals awarded. By comparison, at the FINA World Championships in 2013, the Europeans won just 38% (46/120) of the medals.