FINA Announces Major Schedule Changes to World Cup Circuit; Stars React

BARCELONA, Spain, February 23. AFTER its FINA Bureau meeting today in Barcelona, Spain, FINA announced a few changes that were decided including some tidbits on a major schedule change for the FINA World Cup this year.

The FINA World Cup is the top professional swimming circuit in the world, and has continued to earn coverage and fans every year with relentless short course meter swimming. Last year, Hungary's Katinka Hosszu made a huge name for herself within the swimming community after earning the overall women's title with an astonishing volume of successful competition throughout the seven-meet tour.

This year, however, life will be a bit different on the tour. First, a pair of meets will be swum back-to-back in the summer in Eindhoven, The Netherlands (Aug. 7-8) and Berlin, Germany (Aug. 10-11) following the conclusion of the FINA World Championships (July 19-August 4). This should allow for two of the stops to get some of the top talent in the world to agree to swim at least the first two stops.

Then, six more stops will take pace in October and November, similar to the standard slate fans of the FINA World Cup have some to expect. These stops will be hosted by Moscow, Russia, Dubai, UAE, Doha, Qatar, Singapore, Tokyo, Japan and Beijing, China.

Count on Hosszu to make a run at defending her title, as tweeted by her manager Shan Tusup.

@erinquinn11 @swimmingworld @hosszukatinka I told her between drill sets just now and she just smiled and said I'm down let's do it!

— Shane Tusup (@toos11) February 23, 2013

2009 FINA World Cup victor Jessica Hardy was none too pleased with the announcement, also taking to Twitter with her thoughts on the matter.

New world cup schedule = impossible for Americans. Thanks FINA.

— Jessica Hardy (@swimhardy) February 23, 2013

Additionally, FINA hinted at a “new scoring system” as well as new prize money. Specifics on these two items have yet to be divulged.

Meanwhile, FINA welcomed a new Federation as East Timor has joined the international swimming community. Mexico will also host the 2013 FINA Synchro World Trophy competition.

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