FINA has finalized their 2014 World Cup site hosts, firming up Beijing as the host of the 6th meet in the 8-meet circuit. FINA also set August 31st-September 1st as the dates of the Dubai stop.
The tour this year, which is again expected to employ the cluster system, will be a bit odd as compared to last year. The August 27-28th and 31st-September 1st meets in Doha and Dubai. But then at the end of September, the meet makes an abrupt shift to Hong Kong before coming back to Eindhoven, Netherlands (tentatively for October 4th-5th) and Moscow (October 8th-9th).
If FINA ultimately leaves those meets in a ‘cluster,’ it might be the most lightly attended of the clusters, as the travel times and costs between Hong Kong and Eindhoven, plus the travel headaches that sometimes come with trying to get into meets in Russia, could be a deterrent for many athletes.
The ‘European cluster’ is already on thin ice after Berlin, which had been the fastest meet of this circuit for a decade, was left off of the list.
2014 is a pivotal year for this tour, though. After a wildly successful 2013 season, which was spurred to new attention by the first cluster’s proximity in time and distance to the World Championships, 2014 is FINA’s chance to capture that wave of excitement; to make this tour a main attraction rather than just a nice follow-up to a big meet like the World Championships.
The full tour schedule is below. The Eindhoven stop, currently set for October 4th-5th, is still tentative on date.
FINA Swimming World Cup 2014
FULL CALENDAR
| August 27-28 | Doha (QAT) |
| August 31 – September 1 | Dubai (UAE) |
| September 29-30 | Hong Kong (HKG) |
| October 4-5* | Eindhoven (NED) |
| October 8-9 | Moscow (RUS) |
| October 24-25 | Beijing (CHN) |
| October 28-29 | Tokyo (JPN) |
| November 1-2 | Singapore (SIN) |