The Beach Volleyball World Championships ended a few weeks ago, right as the World Aquatics Championships started. The World Track & Field Championships usually complete the odd-year summer trifecta, but they're being held in the fall this year since they're in Doha, Qatar. And the three events always take on added significance in the pre-Olympic year.
In track & field and swimming, the World Championships don't determine Olympic spots. Those are based on the qualifying standards established by the international federations. But in beach volleyball and the other aquatic sports, Olympic qualification is on the line at Worlds. Which certainly ups the intensity (and makes the pre-Olympic Worlds much more significant than the post-Olympic Worlds).
What I've enjoyed watching at the Aquatics Worlds, though, is the non-Olympic events. In the Olympics, they only have a 10-kilometer open water swim. The top 10 qualified for the Olympics, with Jordan Willimovsky, Haley Anderson and Ashley Twitchell becoming the first three American individuals to book their tickets to Tokyo.
At Worlds, though, the 10K's are just two of the seven open water events. There's a 5K and a 25K for both men and women, as well as a 5K mixed relay. The mixed relay is the new thing across the board in international sports (frankly, I'm surprised they don't have mixed beach volleyball yet). And in the case of open water swimming, it was perhaps the most entertaining race of them all. In order to be considered for the Olympics, events have to be contested at the World Championships first. And judging by the IOC's recent obsession with mixed team events, I wouldn't be surprised to see the mixed open water relay make its way onto the Olympic program in Paris.
But that's not the only place where the Aquatics World Championships program differs than the Olympic program. Olympic spots were on the line in the four synchronized diving events that have been a part of the Olympics since Sydney. But there were also mixed synchro events on both the springboard and platform. They also have a team event which I find very interesting. It's one man and one woman. One does the platform, the other does the 3-meter springboard.
Meanwhile, the swimming program at Worlds has 42 events compared to the Olympics' 35, an increase of three from Rio. They've got 50s in every stroke (not just the freestyle), as well as a mixed 4x100 freestyle relay. The two mixed relays have been a part of the Swimming Worlds for a few years now, and frankly it was kinda surprising that they only added the mixed medley relay to the Olympics.
And in case you thought the swimming portion of the World Championships, don't worry. Because the top 12 teams in the seven relays get spots. Only 16 teams will compete in each relay at the Olympics, so that means we're filling three-quarters of the field. So those relays in Gwangju will be pretty intense.
Synchronized swimming is almost completely different at Worlds. Well, for starters, I should probably start calling it by the right name. Because at some point between the Rio Olympics and now "synchronized" became "artistic."
Anyway, at the Olympics, artistic swimming includes two events--the duet and the team. At the World Championships, they give out 10 gold medals. There are only five events, but for some reason they give separate gold medals for the technical and free routines instead of combining them into one event.
Most interestingly, though, they have the mixed duet in artistic swimming. Bill May made headlines about 20 years ago for being a man breaking into a sport that traditionally was only open to women. He actually wasn't able to compete at a number of events (such as the Worlds and Olympics) for a number of years because they didn't have the mixed event. But evidently now there are enough male artistic swimmers worldwide that they've added the mixed duet to the World Championships.
I haven't seen it yet, but I'd be curious to. When he first burst on the scene, May (who's still competing at 40, BTW) said something along the lines of how the male-female element meant he and his partner could do different things than the typical all-female teams. He compared it to underwater pairs skating. That's why I want to see it. Because I want to see if I agree with his assessment.
Then there's high diving. If you think the 10 meter platform is high, that's nothing. The women jump from twice that height, while for the men, it's nearly three times as high, 27 meters! That's the equivalent of jumping off a six- or nine-story building. These people are nuts!
And if that wasn't crazy enough, I remember one World Championships (I think it was 2013) when the high diving was taking place off the side of a cliff, aka that scary scene in every beach movie where you aren't sure if the guy made it until they show him in the water (or the "death" scene in a soap opera that leaves the character's fate open-ended so they don't have to be written out entirely in case the actor ever decides to come back).
It's terrifying, but it's also fascinating to watch. Unlike the pool diving events where they're doing all those crazy flips and spins, high diving is very basic in comparison. Frankly, I'm usually pretty impressed that they just make it out of the pool in one piece!
High diving has been proposed for Olympic inclusion at least once already, and it probably will be added to the Olympics eventually (if they need a facility, they can just do what they do with big air snowboarding and put a 30-foot tower with a pool inside a stadium somewhere). The diving team event, too. That'll likely make its way to the Olympics at some point. And I'm almost certain that we'll see the open water mixed relay five years from now in Paris.
As for mixed synchro diving and the "artistic" swimming mixed duet, those seem less likely. It's definitely fun to watch them at Worlds, though. Which is another thing that makes the World Championships worthwhile. Pre-Olympic or post-Olympic doesn't matter. Worlds is the show in these events. And they put on a pretty good one!
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