Melbourne Update: Swimming Starts 2nd Week of FINA World Championships

(ATR) Swimming events have just begun at the FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia with open water swimmers surviving jellyfish and rough seas. China dominates diving, Russia rules synchronized swimming and water polo finals are still to come.

Swimming events began March 25 in the Rod Laver Arena. Better known as the venue for the Australian Open tennis match, the arena has been turned into a temporary swimming pool. Spectator capacity is 11,700.

South Korea took its first ever FINA World Championship gold with Park Tae Hwan’s win in men’s 400m freestyle on Sunday.

Events later this week feature solo competitions by favorites American Michael Phelps and Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands.

Open water swimmers were plagued by stinging jellyfish throughout the week and rough weather hit St. Kilda Beach over the weekend.

The women’s 25km open water swimming was struck by high winds and rough seas, making the course too dangerous. FINA officials decided to cut the race at the midpoint on March 24, with swimmers completing the second 12.5km the next day. Britta Kamrau-Corestein of Germany took the gold, but she and other swimmers expressed confusion about the decision to divide the race.

Egyptian swimmer Mohamed Zanaty won the country’s first ever FINA World Championship medal with a bronze in the last open water event, the men’s 25km.

The 10km open water swimming event will debut as an Olympic event in Beijing next year.

China dominated the ten diving events, taking nine golds. Star diver Guo Jingjing broke a world championships record becoming the first diver to win four consecutive individual golds.

The synchronized swimming program has finished with Russia taking gold in six of the seven events.

Water polo quarterfinals begin Tuesday with Germany, Greece, Russia and Italy battling for the men’s prize. Finals are on April 1, the match sold-out.

Diving finals were a sell-out, but tickets are still available for most other competitions. Tickets to the April 1 swimming finals cost $40 – $160.

Almost 2,200 athletes and 1,500 officials representing 173 countries are participating in the competition.

This year’s event will be the first to offer prize money for medalists. A total purse of $2 million will be spread across the five disciplines. In addition, anyone that breaks a world record will receive a bonus $25,000.

Tw members of the Russian squad have had a bad time with Australian law enforcement. A 14-year-old swimmer was detained and reprimanded for shoplifting earlier in the month and diving coach Vladimir Rulev is facing charges of assault on a hotel worker. Rulev is out on bail and is barred from leaving the country.

A free street festival attracted about 200,000 revelers over the weekend, despite a little rain. More than 200 performers and artists took part in the FINA World Championships Festival Weekend held at Federation Square and Birrarung Marr Park along the Yarra River.

The March 17 opening ceremony featured a tribute to retired swimming legend Ian Thorpe of Australia along with performances by Australian bands, comedians and dancers. Canadian representatives also brought a vial of water from the previous championship pool – in Montreal – to pour into the pool at the Rod Laver Arena.

The FINA championships finish on April 1. Rome will host the 2009 event, followed by Shanghai in 2011. The Chinese city was selected as the host this past weekend by the ruling FINA Bureau.