FINA has announced the staging of the Swimming World Cup in September-October 2021. The legs will be held in six countries – Singapore, China (Jinan), Germany (Berlin), Hungary (Budapest), Qatar (Doha) and Russia (Kazan). The competitions are qualifying events for the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) hosted by Abu Dhabi, UAE in December 2021.
Kazan will stage the competitions for the third time. The FINA Development Centre scholarship holders took part in the sixth leg of the FINA Swimming World Cup, which took place on 1-3 November 2019 in Kazan. More than 250 athletes from 50 countries participated in the competitions.
'The leg of the Swimming World Cup was a memorable event for me. I have set several personal bests, met and talked to swimmers from all over the world. And I also want to stress the good level of organization of the competitions,' Arina Baikova shares her memories, who came to the Kazan centre from Latvia.
In the run-up to competitions, at the end of October 2019, the first training camp in the history of the centres was held. More than 30 promising athletes from 24 countries, including athletes from the Thanyapura Training Centre in Thailand and FINA Development Centre in Kazan took part in the camp. The trainings were organised at the Aquatics Palace under the guidance of world famous coaches Miguel Lopez Alvarado (Spain) and Graham Hill (South Africa).
Bisma Khan, Pakistani athlete of the FINA Development Centre in Kazan:
'The camp was full of a pleasant and fun atmosphere. It was an amazing experience with great coaches and first-class swimmers. I learned the secrets of training and the peculiarities of the lifestyle of the Olympians, met interesting people. I really liked the camp; I look forward to it again!'