After a little bit of momentum has been built in the last few years to start allowing 10-lane finals in World Championships, FINA on Saturday voted to kill that momentum and only allow 8 lanes to be used in international finals.
The change, voted on at the FINA Extraordinary Congress in Doha, Qatar, doesn’t make any judgement about preliminary or semi-final heats.
This is not an insignificant or purely-administrative decision by FINA. The broader they allow qualification through to finals to be, the less effort that favorites have to exert to ensure their advancement into finals. This decision can help keep a hint of parity between the top 8 swimmers by forcing all swimmers to exert a little more effort in preliminary and semi-final rounds – where those swimmers who are borderline finalists are already mandated full exertion anyway.
Similarly, by not mandating 8 lanes in all rounds of swimming, hosts still have the option to condense the preliminary heats and shorten those sessions – presumably to the benefit of fans and television coverage.
This will also save FINA some money, as finalists diplomas are awarded to each finalist – and in the case of the World Championships, the rules were written to allow 10 diplomas to be awarded if a 10-lane final was used.
FINA already opted to use 10-lane preliminary rounds at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, and that appears to be the format they’ll prefer to keep going forward when the facility is able to host such a meet.
Very good decision. With 10 lanes the lane 5 is the 4th lane.
Long live the 8 lanes.