FINA To Allow “Wild Cards” at World Champs

CANET, SPAIN, June 8. FOR all you aging world champions out there who believe you just don't get "no respect" from your federations when it comes to international team selection, take heart: FINA has a deal for you.

According to a report in today's La Gazetta Dello Sport, the Italian sports daily, at the Mare Nostrum/Barcelona Meeting in Barcelona earlier this week, FINA President Mustapha Lafoui unveiled a plan to allow former world champions who didn't make their country's team for "The Big Show" to enter starting in
2003 as a "wild card."

A similar scheme is already in place in track whereby world champions are exempted from having to make their country's team in order to compete. However, this rule was not enough to allow American 400 meter Olympic champ Michael Johnson entry onto the 4 x 400 relay team that will run at the World Championships in Edmonton this summer.

USATF, the governing body for athletics in the United States, has ruled that Johnson must run at the U.S. Trials in Eugene next weekend in order to qualify for the relay – something Johnson has repeatedly said he will not do.

In any event, the rule will be implemented for the 2003 Championships to be held in Barcelona, according to the report.

And were the rule in effect this year it would have meant that American Bill Pilczuk would have been given a pass into the meet in the 50 free — a race he won at Perth in the last World Championships when he became the first to ever defeat Russia's Alex Popov over the distance.

A former Auburn All-America, Pilczuk didn't make this year's U.S. team at the Trials in March.

The rule will not apply to the Olympics, however, as only the Inernational Olympic Committee (IOC) has jurisdiction over eligibility there.

But with track and now swimming having embraced such a standard, can Athens be far behind?

— Bill Bell

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