BLOG POSTS
Posted Mar 2nd 2007, 1:17pm
by Thomas Stone
General facts
The vision:
Melbourne will stage the best ever FINA World
Championships in an environment that inspires athlete
performance and audience enjoyment.
Melbourne will host some of the fi nest athletes on the planet when the 12th FINA World
Championships begin in March 2007.
The World Championships will be held from 17 March - 1 April 2007.
The fi ve aquatics disciplines will be contested at the World Championships. They are:
- Swimming
- Open Water Swimming
- Diving
- Water Polo
- Synchronised Swimming
The venues for the World Championships are:
- Rod Laver Arena (RLA): Swimming and Synchronised Swimming
- Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (MSAC): Water Polo and Diving
- St Kilda Beach: Open Water Swimming
An estimated 2000 athletes from as many as 175 countries will compete
at the World Championships.
It is expected that more athletes will compete at next year’s World Championships than the
athletes that competed in the swimming and aquatics program at the 2000 Sydney Olympic
Games and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
The estimated global television audience during the World Championships is expected to
reach one billion viewers.
The World Championships are expected to attract 12,000 interstate and international visitors
to Melbourne.
The estimated economic benefi t that the World Championships will bring to Melbourne
is $80 million.
Up to 1200 members of the international media are expected to attend the World Championships.
Approximately 2000 volunteers will assist in the delivery of the World Championships.
Melbourne will become the fi rst city to host the Olympic Games (1956); the Commonwealth
Games (2006); and the FINA World Championships (2007).
Melbourne was granted the right to host the 12th FINA World Championships in July 2003.
All athletes, coaches and offi cials will stay in hotel accommodation, there is no athletes village.
Posted Mar 2nd 2007, 11:52am by Thomas Stone
FINa event spectacular
Dive into the Festival of the 12th FINA World Championships.
A brilliant free festival of music, circus, street performance, children’s activities and stunning installations is making as big a splash as the aquatic events during the FINA World Championships.
The height of the celebrations is the Festival Weekend from Friday March 23 to Sunday 25, when Federation Square and the adjacent riverside park Birrarung Marr come to life with over 180 performances and events created by 60 groups and artists from all over the world. The precinct will be pumping from 6pm on Friday and midday Saturday and Sunday until midnight.
Also not to be missed are the Festival’s Opening Night Concert at the Federation Square Live Site following the FINA Opening Ceremony on March 17, and the remarkable visual arts installations transforming Birrarung Marr and the Yarra River from March 17 until April 1.
From the cutting edge to the family friendly, there really is something for everyone. Best of all, everything at the Festival is free!
A list of events can be found at http://www.melbourne2007.com.au/default.aspx?s=performancesandevents
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Posted Mar 2nd 2007, 11:48am by Thomas Stone
BBC Comment on 2007
Melbourne will host the World Swimming Championships in 2007 after being chosen ahead of Abu Dhabi and Rio de Janeiro.
Australia has held the championships twice before, in 1991 and 1998, both times in Perth, and Melbourne will also host the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
"We're absolutely delighted," Australian Swimming Federation president John Devitt.
"We have a vision not only to provide a great meeting, but we have given an undertaking to work in partnership with Fina to promote our sport throughout the world.
"Everyone knows Australia can run very big and spectacular swim meets.
"The people of Australia know their swimming, and swimmers around the world respond to that."
World Championships preview
Melbourne already has 50m and diving pools, and will incorporate facilities from the Commonwealth Games.
The decision came at a meeting of the world swimming body Fina in Barcelona on Saturday.
The Spanish city is preparing to host the 10th Fina World Championships, which begin on Sunday.
Montreal is to host the championships in 2005, and Fina also announced that Shanghai would stage the 2006 short-course championships.
Comments
Posted Mar 2nd 2007, 11:46am by Thomas Stone
FINA championship history
1 September, 2005
In 1973, the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA), chose the city of Belgrade as the site of the first ever World Swimming Championships. The success of the event encouraged FINA to make the Championships a permanent fixture on the aquatic calendar, and since the first event, over 30 years ago, a total of ten different cities have hosted the Championships (Perth has hosted the event twice) with Melbourne soon to become the 11th:
1973 - Belgrade, Yugoslavia
1975 - Cali, Colombia
1978 - Berlin, West Germany
1982 - Guyaquil, Ecuador
1986 - Madrid, Spain
1991 - Perth, Australia
1994 - Rome, Italy
1998 - Perth, Australia
2001 - Fukuoka, Japan
2003 - Barcelona, Spain
2005 - Montreal, Canada
Since Belgrade, the aquatic world has seen numerous changes to its flagship event. In 1998, FINA decided to move the Championships from a four to two year cycle, and the event has seen a steady increase in the number of countries and athletes taking part.
The below table summarises the development of the Championships over the years:
Host City Year Countries Athletes Attendance
Belgrade 1973 47 686 -
Cali 1975 39 682 -
Berlin 1978 49 828 -
Guayaquil 1982 52 848 -
Madrid 1986 34 1,119 -
Perth 1991 60 1,142 60,000
Rome 1994 102 1,400 110,000
Perth 1998 121 1,371 95,000
Fukuoka 2001 134 1,498 105,000
Barcelona 2003 157 2,015 205,000
Montreal 2005 144 1784 160,000
The growth in the event has not been limited to those taking part. During this time both attendances and television audiences have also grown. In Barcelona in 2003, such was the success of the event the global television audience was in excess of 850 million people, and was greater again in Montreal.
The number of disciplines involved in the championships has increased, with Open Water Swimming an addition to the championship schedule at the 1991 Perth Championships. Swimming, Diving and Water Polo have also seen developments in their respective sports, as summarised below.
Swimming
• Addition of 50m form strokes (breaststroke, backstroke & butterfly) events (2001)
• Addition of 800m freestyle for men, 1500m freestyle for women (2001)
• 4 x 200m freestyle relay for women (1986)
Diving
• Synchronised Diving (1998)
Water Polo
• Women's water polo (1986)
Open Water Swimming
• 5km event introduced (1998)
• 10km event introduced (2001)
Comments
Posted Mar 2nd 2007, 11:40am by Thomas Stone
How to build a temporary pool
So exactly how will AstralPool build a temporary swimming pool that will be used for the 12th FINA World Championships in Melbourne from 17 March to 1 April 2007? Why not look at how they built the temporary 25-metre pool that was used at the 8th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in April this year.
AstralPool used the same technology it employed in the highly successful Barcelona pool at the 10th FINA World Championships as it did for the recent FINA World Swimming Championships (25m).
The system is called “Skypool”, and uses free standing panels of hot galvanized steel. This certified technology, developed entirely by the Spanish company, enables the pool to sit on the stadium’s floor without having to construct anything or “hammer a single nail”.
The competition pool used in Shanghai measured 25X25X2 metres and held up to 1,250 m3 of water. It took AstralPool technicians approximately three weeks to build and one hundred steel panels were used in the pool’s assembly.
The pool that AstralPool installed in Shanghai was one of the most advanced of its kind. It was been specially designed to help swimmers by introducing innovations that favored their wellbeing and performance. specially designed for competition pools.
The starting blocks were identical to those used with great success in Barcelona 2003. In addition, a series of breakthroughs were applied. These made the swimming pool one of the most perfect swimming environments, and include:
- Adaptable tensioners to adjust the pool measurements to the millimetre
- Disinfection with bromine
- Overflow channel on all four sides to obtain a perfect water surface.
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