World Aquatics

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World Aquatics
300px
Sport
Jurisdiction International
Founded 19 July 1908; 115 years ago (1908-07-19)
Affiliation Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF)
Headquarters Lausanne, Switzerland
President Husain Al-Musallam[1]
Replaced International Swimming Federation
Official website
www.fina.org

FINA (French: Fédération internationale de natation, English: International Swimming Federation[lower-alpha 1]) is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)[2] for administering international competitions in water sports. It is one of several international federations which administer a given sport or discipline for both the IOC and the international community. It is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The federation is set to be officially renamed World Aquatics by 2023[needs update].[3]

FINA currently oversees competition in six aquatics sports: swimming, diving, high diving, artistic swimming,[4][5] water polo, and open water swimming.[6] FINA also oversees "Masters" competition (for adults) in its disciplines.[6]

History

FINA was founded on 19 July 1908 in the Manchester Hotel in London, UK at the end of the 1908 Summer Olympics by the Belgian, British, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian and Swedish Swimming Federations.[7]

Number of national federations by year:

  • 1908: 8
  • 1928: 38
  • 1958: 75
  • 1978: 106
  • 1988: 109
  • 2000: 174
  • 2008: 197
  • 2010: 202
  • 2012: 203
  • 2015: 208[8]
  • 2016: 207
  • 2017: 209

Members

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At the June 2017, FINA Bureau meeting, Bhutan became the 208th national federation of FINA.[9] and on 30 November 2017, Anguilla became the 209th national federation of FINA.[10] Members are grouped by continent, and there are 5 continental associations of which they can choose to be a member:

World Map FINA.svg

Note: The number following each continental name is the number of FINA members which fall into the given geographical area. It is not necessarily the number of members in the continental association.

Organisation

The FINA membership meets every four years, usually coinciding with the World Championships. There are two types of normal or "ordinary" congress: General and Technical. FINA's highest authority is the General Congress. Any technical issues concerning FINA's five aquatic disciplines are decided by the Technical Congress. Each Congress has two voting members from each Member federation, plus the following non-voting members: the 22 members of the Bureau, the Honorary Life President, and all Honorary Members. The Technical Congress has the following additional non-voting members: all members from the respective Technical Committees.[11] "Extraordinary" Congresses are also called from time to time, to deal with a specific topic or area of concern (e.g. an Extraordinary Congress was held with the 2009 World Championships to review the Masters swimming rules; there was a General Congress at the 2009 Worlds[12]). All Congress meetings are chaired by FINA's president.[13]

Between Congress meetings of the entire membership, a smaller 22-member representative board, called the FINA Bureau, meets to act in a timely manner on items which cannot wait until the entire body can meet. It is the Bureau that elects the FINA Executive Officers.[14]

Various committees and commission also help with the oversight of individual disciplines (e.g. the Technical Open Water Swimming Committee helps with open water), or topic-related issues (e.g. the FINA Doping Panel).[15]

Presidents

Each presidential term is four years, beginning and concluding with the year following the Summer Olympics (i.e., 2018-2021 is the current term).

1954 Honorary President Ing. Ladislav Hauptmann - Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia) - President LEN (1948 - 1950) and FINA official.

FINA Presidents
Name Country Term
George Hearn  Great Britain 1908–1924
Erik Bergvall  Sweden 1924–1928
Émile-Georges Drigny  France 1928–1932
Walther Binner  Germany 1932–1936
Harold Fern  Great Britain 1936–1948 (*)
Rene de Raeve  Belgium 1948–1952
M.L. Negri  Argentina 1952–1956
Jan de Vries  Netherlands 1956–1960
Max Ritter  Germany 1960–1964
William Berge Phillips  Australia 1964–1968
Javier Ostos Mora[16]  Mexico 1968–1972
Dr. Harold Henning  United States 1972–1976
Javier Ostos Mora (2nd term)[16]  Mexico 1976–1980
Ante Lambaša  Yugoslavia 1980–1984
Robert Helmick  United States 1984–1988
Mustapha Larfaoui  Algeria 1988–2009
Dr. Julio Maglione  Uruguay 2009–2021
Husain Al-Musallam  Kuwait 2021–present

Events

2008 FINA World Cup swimming at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre

FINA organizes one championship involving each of the five disciplines it oversees (the "World Championships"), as well as championships and circuits in each of the disciplines.[17]

World Aquatics Championships

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The biggest FINA event is the biennial World Aquatics Championships, currently held every odd year. It features competitions in all five aquatic disciplines. Prior to 2000, the event was held every 4 years, in the even year between (Summer) Olympic Games.

Discipline championships

Discipline world cups

In addition to the championships events listed above, FINA also organizes the following events:

Junior championships

World-level championships restricted to a younger age, with the age limit varying by discipline and gender:

Sport name changes

In 2017, FINA officially re-named the sport of synchronised swimming as artistic swimming for its competitions to reflect the expansion in evaluation criteria in the sport to include not only synchronization but other elements such as choreography and artistic expression as well.[4][18]

Bans

Retired athletes

In relation to anti-doping rule violations, FINA does enact suspensions on athletes who are retired from their respective sport at the time of ban implementation, with examples including Lithuanian Rūta Meilutytė (2019–2021) and Russians Artem Lobuzov (2021–2025), Alexandra Sokolova (2021–2025), and Artem Podyakov (2021–2025).[19][20]

Russia and Belarus bans

Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials are banned from every FINA event through the end of 2022.[21] FINA also cancelled FINA events in Russia, and banned Russian and Belarusian teams through to the 19th FINA World Championships Budapest 2022.[21] In March 2022, after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, FINA banned all Russians and Belarusians from competing at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships and withdrew the 2022 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) from being held in Russia.[22] This came after indefinitely banning athletes and officials of both countries from wearing the colours of their country, swimming representing their country with their country's name, and the playing of their country's national anthem in case an athlete from either country won an event.[23] Additionally, times swum by Russians at non-FINA competitions for the April to December 2022 time frame did not count for world rankings nor world records.[24]

Controversies

Soul Cap

In 2021, FINA came under criticism for not approving the use at the Olympics of the Soul Cap, a brand of swimming caps designed for natural Black hair.[25] FINA said the caps did not fit "the natural form of the head" and to their "best knowledge the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require … caps of such size and configuration."[25] After receiving criticism about racism, FINA announced that they would review their decision. Later in 2022, FINA (World Aquatics) decided to approve the Soul Caps for future FINA events (effective immediately)

Transgender athlete restrictions

On 19 June 2022, FINA "committed to the separation of Aquatics sports into men's and women's categories according to sex" by a 71% vote, adopting a new policy on eligibility for the men's and women's competition categories.[26][27][28] This policy effectively bars all transgender women from competing in professional women's swimming, with the exception of athletes who "can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later". FINA also announced the development of a separate "open" category for some events, to be determined by a working group over the next six months, so that "everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level".[29][30] The decision was criticized as "discriminatory, harmful, unscientific and not in line with the 2021 IOC principles" by LGBT advocacy group Athlete Ally.[31]

See also

Notes

  1. Official name in French. See Overview page of FINA's Constitution (page visited on 11 April 2016).

References

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External links

  1. REDIRECT Template:World Aquatics Championships