As Adam Peaty Bypasses Little Pool, We Ask: Can Swimming Be A Sport For All Seasons?

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the passing of Nick Thierry, father of the world rankings, coach, publisher and a man who supported independent journalism and the right of athletes, coaches and those working in swimming each and every day to not only speak out but be heard when governance takes the wrong turn.

Of late, it has seemed as though the frequency of wrong turns and the lack of checks and balances at the heart of swimming governance has held swimming development back just at a time when it needs to bolster all that is great about the sport and find new ways of spreading the swimming word. One of those avenues has been money and the World Cup. This season, like no othger before it, has exposed gigantic cracks in the foundations of a short-course series. What FINA might by now have asked itself is clear: big money, no takers beyond the all too few world-class elite racers who make the trip.

The truth is that, despite the money ($100,000 for the one winner among men and one among women – and all of that in a few hands for far too many years) the cup is not reaching the wider world, is of little interest to the wider world of swimming and of no interest to many of the very best swimmers in the world  and the coaches and programs they work with.

Nick Thierry

To mark the passing of both Nick and Forbes Carlile back in July (tribute from Shane Gould)- and to honour their stance against what at best is the mediocrity of governance that refuses to engage with its membership on the substatice issues affecting the biggest sport (by far) in its stable – SwimVortex will consider two issues this October that are among the biggest challenges swimming faces:

the competition format and calendar access to the decision-making process in swimming

Here is the context. In Rome last week during an interview with Olympic and World 100m breatstsroke champion Adam Peaty – more on that in the coming week as the man and his coach Mel Marshall open a new chapter with a return to training tomorrow – we touched on his future plans. Inevitably, that included any competitions he will target as part of his long-term goals at the return to the pinnacle of the sport in Tokyo 2020.

The British ace, whose 57.13sec world record victory delivered the outstanding swim of the 2016 Olympic Games, his pace the most pioneering of several swims in that category, is very clear when it comes to what he will and will not be doing.

Adam Peaty celebrates – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Count him out of short-course for some while to come. I asked him whether he would be attending any world cups or the world s/c championships in December.

“No, no world cups and we had an option for the World short-course and I said no to that. At the end of the day, no-one cares about short-course in Britain. There’s no coverage of it and what people want to know about is the Olympic Games and the World long-course Championships. I think swimming is getting there as a sport, climbing up the ranking of sports to anotjer level but only when it comes to the Olympic Games and then the World long-course.”

The priority clearly established, I return to the World Cup, the vehicle that FINA has chosen to promote swimming and increase the sport’s year-round visibility. There was no need to mention the woeful entry lists on this year’s tour; no need to refer to any of the many details that leave even those who cover swimming regularly resorting to round-up or turning away altogether. The alternative would be to point out that more than 90% of all entries in the Beijing round of the cup just ended were domestic swimmers, the vast majority of world-class acts from the rest of the world (and within China, too) opting out. This is no ‘World’ Cup beyond anything that speaks to the geography of the eight-event tour.

Peaty gets to that with no prompting whatsoever: “The world cup isn’t working. It is ridiculous …

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