On the eve of the beginning of the 2014 FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships in Doha, Qatar, FINA has announced that Hangzhou, China will host the 2018 version of this meet, beating out Lima, Peru and the UAE in the vote.
Other early candidates, including Valencia, Spain; Copenhagen, Denmark; Tokyo, Japan; Astana, Kazakhstan; New Zealand; and Russia were not considered in the final vote, and it’s not clear how many of them submitted formal bids.
“The city of Hangzhou will offer optimal conditions for the organisation of these Championships. There is a very strong commitment from the local authorities to have this event in this dynamic metropolis”, said the FINA President Dr. Julio C. Maglione, in the Press Conference announcing the FINA Bureau decision.“China is an important partner of FINA and we are always happy to return to this beautiful country”, added the FINA President.
Hangzhou is a city of 8.8 million people and the hub of a 21-million strong metropolitan area – ranking it as China’s 6th-largest hub. It’s also the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province.
Geographically, it’s located about 180 km (108 miles) southwest of Shanghai along Hangzhou Bay.
This will send the world’s best swimmers back to China for at least the fourth time in a decade, after the city hosted the 2008 Olympic Games (Beijing), the 2011 World Championships in long course (Shanghai), and the 2014 Youth Olympic Games (Nanjing).
Hangzhou will follow Windsor, Canada, the host of the 2016 World Short Course Championships. Including Hong Kong, who hosted in 1999, and Shanghai, host in 2006, this is the third time that China will host the World Short Course Championships.
The Asian continent will now host this event 5 out of the last 7 events, if Istanbul, which straddles the border between Europe and Asia, is included. Turkey is officially considered to be a European federation by LEN, however, so officially that will go on the books as 4 of 7.
USA swimming has no ability to promote the most talented group of swimmers in the World. Incompetence…nothing more nothing less…move on and don’t waste time debating it. They cant even handle Phelps.
China, Russia, the Oil Shiekdems; Why are these major swim championships never in the United States?
What I have understood from comments on this website, it’s because USA doesn’t ever bid for one. USA is the most successful swimming nation in the world and there is no doubt FINA members would award it the l/c Worlds if USA just bid for hosting it.
However, in 2016 it’s quite close since the s/c Worlds are held in Windsor, Canada.
In general, in my opinion, hosting FINA worlds requires a little bit downsizing to make more attractive for potential hosts without big financial guarantors.
Long Beach made a really good bid for 2005 but lost out to Montreal, whose event committee promptly got into so much financial trouble that its head sadly committed suicide. Long Beach later said they were glad they lost because of the huge financial burden it would have placed on the city.
Long course worlds is a pretty cursed event in general if you look back at its history- many a drug scandal (thank you Perth customs officials in 1998) the mafia controlling construction of the Rome 2009 venue, ‘there are absolutely no problems with the Seiko timing system’….
USA Swimming gets a better return on its investment in promotion and athlete development if it doesn’t get pulled into… Read more »