FINA TO USE 10 LANES IN PRELIMS AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS FINA recently changed the rules for World Championship and Olympic type meets to give themselves the authority, though not the mandate, to use all 10 lanes in preliminary rounds. This year, in Barcelona, they’ve taken full advantage. Preliminary heats, depending on how the number of entrants fall out, will range from 4 to 10 participants per heat in the temporary 10-lane pool at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. The Americans went to this setup for the Olympic Trials last year (like Worlds, with just 8 advancing to finals). There was some resistance to swim in the outside lanes, where swimmers felt they were too close to the wall and to some underwater camera apparatus (and especially too close to the flames during an accidental eruption during the men’s 400 IM) but ultimately it probably cut hours of swimming time out of already marathon sessions. The World Championships don’t have quite the same issue, but for preliminary rounds that are basically a chance for swimmers to try for best times, and to advance to semi-final and final rounds, it still behooves the governing body to use all 10 available lanes. The longest preliminary session of the meet is expected to be the first day, on Tuesday, which will run about 3 hours and 45 minutes. After that, things generally come in pretty short, including multiple days with just 4-or-5 preliminary events.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 04:55:54 +0000