{"id":373399,"date":"2019-06-05T04:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=373399"},"modified":"2019-06-04T13:20:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T20:20:27","slug":"swimming-world-presents-remembering-the-1st-world-championships-belgrade-1973","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/swimming-world-presents-remembering-the-1st-world-championships-belgrade-1973\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming World Presents “Remembering the 1st World Championships: Belgrade 1973”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remembering the 1st World Championships: Belgrade 1973<\/span><\/h2>\n

As excitement builds for the 18th FINA World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, Korea, Swimming World reflects on the origins of this truly great event.<\/p>\n

Prior to 1973, there was only one chance to compete against the best in the world, and that happened every quadrennium. Back then, the Olympic Games were the world championships. There were no FINA Cups or Series for our stars to shine between Olympic Games, and training focused on a four-year cycle.<\/p>\n

The man primarily responsible for changing that was Dr. Harold \u201cHal\u201d Henning, a dentist from Chicago who was the USA\u2019s FINA Bureau member. As head of the AAU\u2019s Swimming Committee in the early 1960s, Dr. Henning had championed the idea of establishing a swimming hall of fame. As a FINA Bureau member, he helped build a consensus for FINA to recognize the Hall as FINA\u2019s Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

After that, he started talking up the idea of a FINA World Championships to be held between the Olympic Games. Over the next few years, he worked tirelessly to build a consensus among the Federations, but doing so in those days was very difficult, especially for an American. It was in the midst of the Cold War, and the challenges facing FINA were threatening to destroy the organization\u2019s credibility.<\/p>\n

Trying times need great leaders, and at the 1972 Munich Games, Dr. Henning succeeded Mexico\u2019s Javier Ostos Mora as FINA president. It was under Ostos Mora that the FINA Bureau agreed to hold a World Championships, and Belgrade, Yugoslavia was the chosen site.<\/p>\n

But then came what happened at Munich during the second week of the XX Olympiad, and the world had to deal with the aftermath of the Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes…<\/p>\n

To read the full story of what happened leading into the first FINA World Championships in Belgrade, 1973,
\ncheck out the June 2019 issue of Swimming World Magazine<\/em>, available now!<\/p>\n

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