Xinhua News Agency, Doha, February 1 ST (Reporter Liu Yang, Zhou Xin, Sun Zhe) Just half a year after the Fukuoka Swimming World Championships, the Doha Swimming World Championships will be held soon. From February 2 nd to 18 th, Doha, located in the tropical desert climate, will hold the World Swimming Championships for the first time to welcome the "carnival" of water sports.
Poster of Doha Swimming World Championships.
The World Swimming Championships was once held every four years, but it has been changed to biennial in the past 20 years, and it has become "annual" since 2021. Affected by the epidemic, the Fukuoka World Championships in 2021 was postponed twice after the Tokyo Olympic Games, and was finally held in July 2023. Budapest filled the "vacancy" in 2022. The Doha World Championships originally scheduled to be held in 2023 was "squeezed" to the beginning of 2024, making the swimming world championships held in the same year as the Olympic Games for the first time. Singapore, the host of the 2025 World Championships, was already in place, which led to the four consecutive years from 2022 to 2025.
There are six major events in this World Championships: diving, synchronized swimming, open water swimming, water polo, swimming and high platform diving. Among them, diving, synchronized swimming, open water swimming and water polo are all Olympic qualifying events. Only swimming events do not have this sense of urgency, because it determines the Olympic qualification based on whether the results meet the standards.
Li Bingjie is the only Olympic champion of China swimming team in Doha. Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Zongzhi photo
For swimmers, it is easy to reach the standard, so they give up the World Championships in Doha one after another and focus on the Olympic Games. The Doha swimming pool is slightly lacking in star flavor. China also hid Olympic champions Zhang Yufei, Wang Shun, Ye Shiwen and the new "Frog King" Qin Haiyang, and Li Bingjie was the only Olympic champion for China to swim in Doha. This also gives China’s young swimmers a chance to emerge: Pan Zhanle will attack the highest podium in the men’s 100m freestyle; Dong Zhihao has medal strength in the men’s 200m breaststroke; Zhang Zhanshuo, a 16-year-old teenager, will usher in the first adult international competition and participate in five individual competitions; Yu Yiting will perform a world-class performance in the women’s 200m medley.
Looking at foreign famous players, American Olympic champions Ledecki, Dressel, Regan Smith, lily king and others will be absent; Canadian Olympic champion McNeil and rising star McIntosh will not play; The Australian team has 18 participants, and the women’s team has almost no famous players; Romanian short-distance freestyle star Popovich is not on the list; The Japanese team only sent 12 people to participate.
Chen Yuxi and Quan Hongchan, the main players of China diving team, all participated in the competition. Xinhua News Agency reporter Ren Pengfei photo
In diving events, foreign athletes need to compete for Olympic qualifications. The main force of the China diving team, which has won the full quota, will all participate. Gemini Chen Yuxi and Quan Hongchan will once again conquer the world with the "water spray disappearance"; In addition, Cao Yuan, a three-dynasty Olympic champion who returned from injury, and Xie Si-dai, a men’s 3m springboard champion who returned from Tokyo Olympic Games last year, attracted special attention. Huang Jianjie, who is under 14 years old, is the only non-world champion and the youngest player in the team.
In synchronized swimming, China secured a seat in Paris with the doubles and team events champions of the Hangzhou Asian Games. This time, it will participate in all 11 events of the World Championships for the first time, and Yang Shuncheng, a teenager from Beijing, will make his debut in the men’s singles competition for the first time. The new synchronized swimming rules were implemented last year. China won 3 gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze in Fukuoka, and will continue to meet the challenge of bidding for the Paris Olympic Games in Doha this time. Bill may, the 45-year-old godfather of American synchronized swimming, will also appear in Doha. He said that it is his greatest wish to win the qualification for the Paris Olympic Games and stand on the Olympic Games.
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