{"id":414118,"date":"2020-02-06T11:16:39","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T18:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=414118"},"modified":"2020-02-06T11:16:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T18:16:39","slug":"swim-poll-of-the-week-do-you-believe-fina-took-a-copycat-approach-to-the-isl-in-its-construction-of-the-fina-champions-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/swim-poll-of-the-week-do-you-believe-fina-took-a-copycat-approach-to-the-isl-in-its-construction-of-the-fina-champions-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Swim Poll of the Week: Do You Believe FINA Took a Copycat Approach to the ISL in Its Construction of the FINA Champions Series?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the Swim Poll of the Week for Thursday February 6, 2020, sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products<\/a>. In our last poll, we wanted to know: Do you believe FINA took a copycat approach to the ISL in its construction of the FINA Champions Swim Series<\/strong>?<\/b><\/p>\n

The\u00a0International Swimming League<\/strong>\u00a0has officially added a copycat charge to its complaints against\u00a0FINA<\/strong>\u00a0in the latest developments in its legal action at the\u00a0U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The process is in its relative infancy yet: a formal discovery process is now underway, a trial scheduled for January 2022.<\/p>\n

On December 16 last year, the court denied FINA\u2019s motion to dismiss the cases brought by the ISL and, in parallel action,\u00a0triple Olympic champion\u00a0Katinka Hosszu<\/strong>, of Hungary, and USA teamsters\u00a0Tom Shields<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Andrew<\/strong>, in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Updated claims lodged with the court 10 days ago include ISL\u2019s view that\u00a0FINA misappropriated the League\u2019s format by aligning its competition and prize schedules to those already announced by the ISL.<\/p>\n

FINA has three weeks to answer the claims, which chronology stretches to this: a charge of hindsight that attempted to circumnavigate the legal challenge in play. Only when the ISL initiated a legal challenge did FINA withdraw threats of sanctions against national governing bodies if they did not in turn impose sanctions on swimmers under their jurisdiction for associating themselves with a non-affiliated organization, namely the League.<\/p>\n

We asked for the swim poll and you answered with\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n