For the first time, the World Swimming Championships will be held in an Olympic year, and in close proximity of less than six months from the record event this summer in Paris.
It is not impossible for a swimmer to reach two peaks within such a period of time, but it is also not ideal and involves a lot of effort and variables that caused quite a few swimmers and national teams to give up participating in the second biggest stage in the industry.
The matter gets even more complicated for swimmers in swimming powerhouses like the USA and Australia, who have to prepare themselves with all their strength and focus for another peak before Paris - their national trials for the Olympics that will be held in June, about a month before the Games.
This precedent, which created a lot of antagonism in the industry, is the product of a previous world championship that was postponed due to the corona virus, and a promise of hosting by the Qataris that the World Swimming Association could not get rid of.
Despite the problematic timing, quite a few swimming stars who chose to use the competition as a springboard for Paris will jump into the pool at the Hamed center in Qatar.
The legendary Adam Peaty will return after an absence of almost two years from major competitions, Sarah Shostrom, Paltrinieri, Kate Douglas, Cam McVeigh and many more good ones will come to give a show.
Adam Pitti.
A story that doesn't end well, photo: from Twitter
The USA and Australia chose to send very limited teams, compared to the British and Italians who arrive with almost full squads.
Every championship without the quality and depth of Australia and the USA opens up the podium and the entry entirely in a significant way for other swimmers and especially for young people who will break through this year.
Three Blue and White representatives represented the country: Daria Golovati and Anastasia Gorbenko who are training together with Sivan Hohi (silver medalist from Tokyo) and as a training group decided to prepare (how soon we will find out) for the championship.
On the men's side, Denis Loktev will be the only representative, and will come straight from training at the University of Louisville.
Anastasia Gorbenko, photo: Oren Aharoni
The competition is also a last chance to get a ticket to Paris in the relays, so the absence of the full Israeli team has significance.
At the moment, the Israeli quartets are placed in a good position in 3 relay events: the men's 4x100, the men's 4x200 free, and the women's 4x200 free. in qualifying for Paris).
Gorbenko, who has already set the criterion for Paris, will compete in her strongest event, the 200 meters in which she is also the European champion, already on the first day of the competition (11.2).
It will be interesting to see her compete in perhaps the most competitive and high-quality event in recent years, and since some of the favorites will not participate - this is a real opportunity to warm up the engines and produce this magic that she knows how to produce in real moments and maybe also get closer to the podium area.
We will broadcast all the preliminaries and the finals on the sports channel with Eli Ildis.
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Gorbenko.
In a pool in Japan, photo: Simona Castervillari
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