Shanghai News Roundup: Look Out for Goldman in Women's 800 Free

FINA completed their bureau meeting today, where they discussed, among other things, the upcoming round of Major Championship meets. There, they officially awarded the 2014 Masters World Championship hosting bid to Montreal over Buenos Aires, Argentina. That’s a small consollation prize for the Canadian city that last week was eliminated for contention for the 2015/2017 World Championship bids…

…Speaking of World Championship bids, FINA will announce sometime in the next 24 hours who has earned the right to host the 2015 (and possibly the 2017) World Championships. The finalists are Kazan, Russia; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Hong Kong, China. The competition may have shifted, as it appears that Hong Kong doesn’t have much government backing for their bid, which would really put Kazan back into the race….

…Psych sheets still have not been released (though perhaps they will be one of the products of the FINA bureau meeting), but Omega Timing has relaunched their website in preparation. The site now has a white background, instead of the black it used to have. I think it’s a nice aesthetic change. Omega has been under some heat after several equipment malfunctions at Track & Field’s Diamond League meet in Paris last weekend. Hopefully, they don’t run into the same issues in Shanghai…

…Australia’s Katie Goldman isn’t getting much love in the women’s 800 free. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve seen her picked to medal much of anywhere. But consider this: in 2010, she finished ranked 3rd in the world (8:22.83) despite having her season derailed by a bout with iron deficiency, which can be killer with the amount of yardage put in by elite distance swimmers. Get this: she’s actually 5-months younger than the great American distance swimmer Chloe Sutton. Could the world’s future of distance swimming be battling it out for bronze in Shanghai?…

…The Shanghai organizing committee has managed to assuage federations’ fears about tainted food in China during the World Championships. They have given each federation a list of approved hotels and restaurants that are subject to the country’s strictest governmental food-regulations, which they say has caused the withdrawl of all concerns from the federations. The big-name drug that’s most often bandied about as being concerning is clenbuterol, which is the substance that Jessica Hardy tested positive for at the 2008 Olympic Trials. The athletes won’t have access to a secluded “athletes” village like they did in Beijing, so this has been a contentious issue for many, especially after 22 cyclists tested positive following a trip to China. One of those was 2010 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, who will have his case heard before the CAS the first week of August…

…Just days after the scam-artists who scammed Rebecca Adlington’s parents into buying London Olympic tickets was sentenced to some serious jail sentences, another multi-Olympic Champion, Kirsty Coventry, has been hit by fraud. Coventry discovered early this week that money had mysteriously disappeared from her bank account after her debit card was “skimmed and cloned,” an issue that is on the rise in South Africa where her bank is located. This is a scam where the offending party will run a credit card through an electronic machine that remembers the card number and allows the creation of a duplicate card. Luckily, the bank has agreed to return all of her funs, as is their policy….

…Triple Olympic gold medalist Stephanie Rice of Australia, who is back in action after shoulder surgery in August, is back down to her Beijing weight. She Tweeted today that she was back down to her “Olympic skinfold of 48,” referring to a common test of body fat percentage. That means she’s lost about 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds. With her shoulder reported to be feeling good, will she shock and pull of victories in either the 200 or 400 IM? Would be quite a turnaround this shortly after shoulder surgery…