Windsor set to host historical World Swimming Championships

Windsor, Ontario, Canada, is set to be in the spotlights at the beginning of December as the town is getting ready to stage the 13th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) from 6-11 of next month.

Over the six-day championships in a 25m-pool format, a total of over 900 athletes, representing around 170 National Federations will be competing for a short-course world title in a vast series of events - 46 overall, including mixed relays.

The complete schedule unfolds as follows:

The 13th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) will be the first ever to come to Canada- a country with a long tradition in swimming – and it will get as Canadian as it can, with the swimming pool being built in an ice hockey ring, one of the most popular sports in this region.

The competition venue, the WFCU Centre, home of the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League, counts no less than 6 500 seats surrounding the arena. Starting in November 2016, the ring will undergo a major transformation into a swimming pool to welcome the world’s swimming elite. More than 35 000 spectators are expected to visit the WFCU Centre during the championships.

A temporary 25m long x 26m wide x 2m deep competition pool will be constructed on top of the main arena floor, after the ice is completely melted.

Canada will send a strong contingent that includes several Rio 2016, headlined by quadruple medallist and 100m freestyle Olympic champion Penny Oleksiak. Windsor 2016 ambassador Kylie Masse, 100m backstroke bronze medallist in Rio, grew up not far from Windsor and trained with the Windsor Essex Swim.

But the entry lists include more of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games medallists such as USA’s Lilly King and Josh Pernot but also Spain’s Mireia Belmonte also a gold medallist in Rio and Australia’s Bobby Hurley, South Africa Chad Le Clos and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu.

The Swimming community will be gathering in Canada’s southernmost city, which already represents a milestone in FINA’s activities with four other key international rendezvous of the global Aquatic Family: the FINA World Aquatics Convention, the FINA Swimming Coaches Golden Clinic, the FINA World Sports Medicine Congress and the FINA Gala “Soirée des Etoiles”.