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Ole, ole, ole Barcelona chosen as 2003 world championship hosts
Posted: Tuesday March 30, 1999 03:42 PM
HONG KONG (AP) -- Barcelona, whose pool with a view became a symbol of the 1992 Olympics, was chosen Tuesday as host for the 2003 world swimming championships. Moscow was chosen over Taipei, Taiwan, as host for the 2002 world short-course championships. Barcelona triumphed in a race with Long Beach, California, and Montreal for the honor of staging the 2003 competition in swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water swimming. FINA president Mustapha Larfaoui of Algeria ripped open envelopes containing the winning bidders' names after a secret ballot by 20 members of the FINA Bureau, the executive body of swimming's world governing organization. Gunnar Werner, FINA's honorary secretary, said Barcelona won a majority on the first ballot, but he declined to specify the exact number of votes for each city. "This is fantastic, a dream come true," said Manuel Ibern, who handles sports affairs for Barcelona's city council. "With three Olympic cities bidding, for us to win was a colossal performance," he added. Long Beach was the site of some events for the 1984 Los Angeles games, while Montreal hosted the games in 1976. Ibern said the Olympic pools that afforded spectacular views over Barcelona would be used for the swimming and diving events, but the city wanted the championships to be "not only a repeat of the Olympics." Water polo and synchronized swimming would be moved to two pools along the beach -- one permanent and one temporary, he said. Open water races also would be held along the beach, where 100,000 people could watch, he added. Organizers hoped to attract the general public as well as swimming fans to the events, and "to create an atmosphere of passion," Ibern said. Larfaoui said the three bidders for the 2003 championships presented excellent proposals that made the decision "a true honor but a real challenge." Werner said experts also had visited the bidding cities to check on competition venues, accommodations, transport and government support. The FINA Bureau is meeting in Hong Kong in advance of the 4th world short-course championships, opening Thursday in a stainless steel pool set up especially for the event in the Hong Kong Coliseum. Before the competitions in Barcelona and Moscow, the 9th world championships in a regulation 50-meter Olympic pool are scheduled in July 2001 in Fukuoka, Japan, and the 5th short-course world meet is scheduled in March 2000 in Athens. A FINA extraordinary congress was to adopt new doping control rules Wednesday in an effort to close loopholes that could lead to the body losing court rulings in anti-doping actions.
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