If you have been watching the IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow you may have noticed something a little bit odd during the medal ceremonies. That something is that the winners national anthems are being limited in their play time to 45 seconds due to time constraints of the event.
In the clip below Australian Ellie Cole, who won the 100 backstroke S9 in world record time, receives her gold medal with a shortened version of ‘Advance Australia Fair’. Although the anthem was shortened that did not stop a number of her teammates from continuing to sing their national anthem with pride.
IPC Swimming answered a question about this very topic on Twitter in a reply to @TomMiazga.
@TomMiazga Hi Tom, we’ve got such a packed programme that we need to use shorter versions. It’s the same for all the athletes.
— IPC Swimming (@IPCSwimming) July 13, 2015
To say that the IPC Swimming World Championships has a packed schedule is an understatement.
When looking at the original schedule for day two there were 13 medal events, when factoring in the time for playing the full national anthem during each medal ceremony the finals were set to start at 6:06 pm and end at 9:31 pm. That is a three hour and 25 minute session.
With the national anthems being shortened to 45 seconds the actual evening’s events went from 6:06 pm to 8:54 pm, which is a two hour and 48 minute session.
Compare that to the 2013 FINA World Championships. On day two there were eight events swum with four of them having medals awarded. The session began at 6:02 pm and ended at approximately 7:26 pm, which is a one hour and 24 minute session. That is exactly half the time of the IPC session with the shortened national anthems.
@TomMiazga was correct, these athletes work their entire careers to hopefully be able to stand atop the medal podium with pride while their national anthem is being played for the world to hear.
It is a shame that they are not able to enjoy the anthems in their entirety, but the organizers have a difficult decision to make.
Shortening the anthems is not something anyone wants. The alternative is having an event that lasts almost three and a half hours with the prelims of the following day starting only 12 hours later. With that long of a session it creates a situation where the timeline could have a negative affect on the performance of several athletes, which is also something no one wants.
Too many events. Solution to the time issue: Cut a few.
I assume athletes would rather have their anthems cut than their events cut.