2008 World Cup : Speakers & Interviews

The World Cup is over a 5 week period. Belo Horizonte just happened. Next week Durbin South Africa, Sydney Aus, Singapore, Stockholm, Moscow, Berlin (the Stockholm, Moscow, Berlin meets are withing 2 weeks).

The meet to meet scoring is based on FINA world ranking points. The swimmers are ranked 1-20 based on how many points they score... Marieke Guehrer from Austrailia won the womens top spot by scoring something like 991 points in the 100 fly. (1000 points being a world record). From this she would get the top points from the meet (20 points), second place would get 18pts and so on.
The Meet last weekend in Belo Horizonte, Brasil was really fun. It got a lot of press and the swimming was pretty fast. Only 3 American swimmers swam in Brasil - Randal Ball, Tara Kirk, and Brooke Bishop. Randall and Tara won 2 events and Brooke won one. Swedish swimmer EJDERVIK Rebecca Ejdervik of ASU was there, as well as Arkansas Backstroker Lynette Ng. Then there was Ous - what a beast! Swimming himself into shape!
Fun overall

Could someone explain the World Cup format for me? How many and what events? Do they change from week to week? Where are the locations? Do you have to swim a certain amount of events? How is it scored? etc......

Good set up for the world cup meets. Maybe you can have each of the USA swimmers who do the cup get interviewed on a regular basis to amp up the enthusiasm.....It'd be great to know how they get their sponsors, etc., Dual meets...YES. World Cup Squad....from Jon Lau's post....another YES!
Thanks.

maybe USA swimming should make a traveling world cup squad that participates in all the stops. it would strengthen usa swimming coverage, the experience of its upper level swimmers, coverage can also lead to sponsorships of the athletes and USA swimming.

If you want to watch the FINA World Cup LIVE and FREE you can go to the link below for direct access: The Broadcasts starts tomorrow, Nov. 11 and goes into mid Nov.

link to FINA World Cup: http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?CLIP_I…

Randall Bal cashed $131.500; a $100.000 prize for being the men's overall champion, and $31.500 for the 21 consecutive backstroke finals he won (all backstoke finals - 50, 100, 200 - in all the 7 events of the cup).
Was there to watch his last 3 finals;
and tomorrow I'm at MTC pool to watch the event, which happens here in the city I live.

The world still needs the 25's of each event. To me the 25 is equivalent to the 100 M dash for track. Get up and go!

Swimming has historically been about the 100 LCM Free being the premiere event. It's a joke the 50 has only been at the Olympics since 1988.
25's of each event would demand absolute perfection and power!
Swimming is still way behind track and field with it's overall training. There are small epicenters (Auburn, Cal, Race Club just to name a few) that do it right and are committed to innovation and hard work but the overall game is sport is yet to catch up. My belief is that it's too difficult to run separate groups in an age group program (staff, lane space) as well as experienced college coaches resisting change.

Keep going guys!! You are right, travel the world before it is too late! Elite or Top level swimming only last soooo long. Part of Swimming is swim meets. 1st swim then Meet!!

You guys are the best.

i think randall bal cashed in about $100,000 from all of the world cups last season. it is definitely a risk going out to those meets with no guarantee that you will finish in the money ranks, but elite swimmers from the united states national teams usually have no problem finishing in the top 3 of events.

elixirnova, a relay meet would be awesome!!! 4x1500! 4x50 fly!

The top athletes are already paid pretty well via sponsorship deals (will change with Nike departure) so they probably feel they don't need the money and would rather take a longer break after the Olympics. Without the top swimmers, the casual fan doesn't recognize the meet. It goes back to a larger problem of just promoting a few athletes for recognition, which reduces the opportunities for everyone else. This may be an exception (although I'm not sure how that 1.1M is spread out), but the risk of not making up for your expenses looms large for the average swimmer who would be taking time off from work... or being able to get that time period.

this still reminds me that there has yet to be an international relay meet. Understandably that requires even more competitors though. I know I'm not alone in wanting to see some countries put together 4x50 Free relay or 4x50 medley relay... In fact a whole relay meet would rock!

Anyhow I do agree that the US is usually lacking at the World Cup series. If they do show up, it is to one or two of the stops. It's great to see the athletes that ride it out and make it to all or close to all of the events. Not to mention they get a pretty good chance at some $$$

great points guys! the world cup is definitely a great way to make money, work on racing, gain international experience, and continue in the sport after graduating. in the united states, the grand prix system should be remodeled after the world cup system and provide more money and emphasis on it.