2014 FINA World Cup Circuit Kicks Off This Week In Qatar

Photo Credit: Joao Marc Bosch

QATAR, Doha, August 25. A number of top international swimmers are scheduled to compete in the first stop of the 2014 FINA/Mastbank Swimming World Cup, which gets underway Aug. 27 in Doha, Qatar. The 2014 circuit covers seven cities – Doha, Dubai, Hong Kong, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo and Singapore – in a two-month stretch from late August to early November.

Many of the top overall finishers from the 2013 World Cup circuit will be back in action this week, including two of the top three finishers on the men’s side and all three of the top finishers on the women’s side.

Three-time Olympian Katinka Hosszu of Hungary, the reigning World Cup series champion, returns to defend her title, which she won in a landslide last year with 840 points, more than 500 points ahead of runner-up Alia Atkinson of Jamaica. Hosszu regularly enters and swims at least half a dozen events at each meet she goes to, which pays off big time in the World Cup meets with a ton of individual points. Hosszu picked up five medals at the recent European Championships in Berlin, winning gold in the 200 IM (2:08.11), 400 IM (4:31.03) and 100 back (59.63), silver in the 200 free (1:56.69) and bronze in the 200 fly (2:07.28).

Spain’s Mireia Belmonte finished third overall in the 2013 standings with 280 points, and also brought home a handful of medals from the European Championships last week. She collected gold medals in the 1500 free (15:57.29) and 200 fly (2:04.79), silver medals in the 800 free (8:21.22) and 400 IM (4:33.13) and a bronze medal in the 400 free (4:04.01).

Hosszu and Belmonte are two of the most versatile female swimmers in the world, and it should be another great battle for the top three spots in the women’s World Cup standings.

On the men’s side, 2013 circuit champion Chad Le Clos of South Africa and third-place finisher Robert Hurley of Australia headline another star-studded World Cup field. Le Clos amassed 574 points in 2013 to top Russia’s Vladimir Morozov (414 points) and Hurley (285 points).

Le Clos already owns a handful of highly-ranked times internationally this year; he’s 10th in the 50 fly (23.29), tied for second in the 100 fly (51.29), first in the 200 fly (1:54.56), tied for 10th in the 200 IM (1:57.94) and 15th in the 400 IM (4:14.81). In the race for the overall World Cup series title, versatility is the name of the game, and Le Clos has at least five events that he’s capable of winning at each and every meet.

Other swimmers to watch for include Australia’s Ashley Delaney, Hungary’s Daniel Gyurta, Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli, The Netherlands’ Inge Dekker, Poland’s Konrad Czerniak and Pawel Korzeniowski, South Africa’s Roland Schoeman and Tunisia’s Ous Mellouli.

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Duncan

9 years ago

All the times mentioned reflect long course times. Is there something different about this year’s World Cup series. Are all still 25 m course or is there a mix of LC&SC this year?

Jason Marsteller

9 years ago

Reply to Duncan

Hey Duncan,

This started last year. FINA has a cluster right after the BIG meet each year now that is LCM to help attract top stars, hoping they hold their taper for another week to make money. The other two clusters will be SCM.

It worked well last year because they scheduled the European cluster right after a Spain-based Worlds. Should be interesting this year with the Middle East cluster after Berlin and Gold Coast-based events.

Duncan

9 years ago

Reply to Jason Marsteller

I remember the meets held right after Worlds last year, but I guess I didn’t recognize they were actually part of the World Cup circuit.

Good idea, generally, I suppose. Strikes me a potential drawback is that some of swimming’s biggest stars didn’t go to their “assigned” end of Summer big meet (Pan-Pac, Europeans, Asian Champs to come, with some of the top younger athletes also drawn off by Youth Olympics, European Jrs, and Junior Pan-Pacs), I’d suspect because of the prizes at the World Cup, which might(?) be more lucrative than what was/is available at the more traditional events. Some, like LeClos, Schoeman and the top Chinese, had the excuse of the early Commonwealth Games and late Asian Games scheduling, but what of Kromowidjojo, Cielo and others. Absences by some may be due to injuries, illness or conscious training program plan, but I don’t know. What I do know is that while not a World/Olympic year where all the best will meet in one place, it would be nice if in the “between” years we could make, to pick a number, maybe three meets attractive enough to produce events involving all the top athletes representing their countries at one, or maybe two, of the meets. Wishful thinking, maybe.

Duncan

9 years ago

Reply to Jason Marsteller

Just watched the Doha finals — in SCM. Is the next stop long course?

Jason Marsteller

9 years ago

Reply to Duncan

It’s actually all SCM. They just went with LCM seeds to start with.

Jason Marsteller

9 years ago

Duncan,

I think we’d all love to have a true Worlds every year, replaced by the Olympics every four years. It’s just that the regional meets like the Commonwealth and Asian Games hold such significance to their respective nations, they might still not put Worlds as their top event.

China, for instance, always has a much higher incentive to win local events than most others. It’s hard for some globally to fathom, but China doesn’t care much about a lot of the big international meets. They want to beat their regional rivals.

Duncan

9 years ago

Reply to Jason Marsteller

Your analysis is, of course, correct in the real world. I can dream,can’t I?

I know the Chinese have looked forward to their local/provincial championships; we used to (?) suspect that was because it would be a less likely place for drug test failures. What I understand they are looking to now is Asian Games, which is a pretty darn large multi-national event. I suspect we’ll see some amazing stuff; I look forward to the results.

Jason Marsteller

9 years ago

Reply to Duncan

The Asian Games has definitely become a much bigger event internationally, and they have gotten much better at getting the word out about results online. However, there are some face-saving issues with results not being up on scoreboards immediately over there. Ron Turner, who is coaching at Blue Wave Swim Team now, spent some time over there and tells some crazy stories about results. He actually was the age group coach of Shen Duo, the Chinese freestyler who just had a terrific Youth Olympic Games.

It would be like pulling nails trying to get official results out of there, even for the coaches at times.

I’m anticipating the Asian Games hosted in Incheon, Korea being a much more open results situation.

Again, I think almost all of us would prefer to just have one big Worlds every year, but there’s too much history in these regional events to just ignore them.

Jeannine

9 years ago

I think I found a site to watch finals live. Will there be any live stream of prelims? What time are the events slated to start?

Jason Marsteller

9 years ago

Reply to Jeannine

We will be covering all sessions live, and will have links available at that time.

Both Doha and Dubai are 10 a.m. prelims, 6 p.m. finals. That translates to Midnight/8 a.m. here in Phoenix for Doha and 11 p.m./7 a.m. for Dubai.

Jeannine

9 years ago

Reply to Jason Marsteller

Awesome, thank you!

Jeannine

9 years ago

Reply to Jason Marsteller

I’m not finding coverage 🙁