2009 World Aquatics Championships

The 2009 World Aquatics Championships or the XIII FINA World Championships are being celebrated in Rome, Italy in 2009 from July 17 to August 2. The 2009 Championships will feature competition in all 5 aquatics disciplines: diving, swimming, open water swimming, synchronized swimming and water polo.

Rome won the right to stage the event on July 16, 2005 in Montreal, Canada. Rome defeated rival bids from Athens (Greece), Moscow (Russia) and Yokohama (Japan).

A record 2556 athletes from 185 countries will be participating.

Venues

• Foro Italico
• Ostia (open water)

Medals table

1	China	11	7	10	28
2	United States	10	11	7	28
3	Russia	8	8	4	20
4	Germany	6	3	1	10
5	Australia	4	5	7	16
6	Great Britain	4	3	2	9
7	Italy	4	1	5	10
8	Serbia	3	1	0	4
9	Brazil	2	1	1	4
10	Spain	1	7	3	11
11	Japan	1	2	1	4
12	Hungary	1	1	3	5
13	Denmark	1	1	0	2
14	South Africa	1	0	3	4
15	Mexico	1	0	0	1
15	Netherlands	1	0	0	1
15	Sweden	1	0	0	1
15	Zimbabwe	1	0	0	1
19	Canada	0	3	5	8
20	France	0	3	3	6
21	Tunisia	0	2	0	2
22	Greece	0	1	0	1
22	Poland	0	1	0	1
24	Austria	0	0	1	1
24	Croatia	0	0	1	1
24	Cuba	0	0	1	1
24	Lithuania	0	0	1	1
24	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
24	Norway	0	0	1	1
24	Romania	0	0	1	1
Total		61	61	62	184

Schedule

●

Opening ceremony

Events

●

Final events

●

Closing ceremony

July/August	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	1	2	T
Ceremonies		●															●
Swimming										● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ● ●	40
Open water swimming					● ●	● ●			● ●									6
Diving	●	● ●	● ●		● ●		●	●	●									10
Water polo															●	●		2
Synchronised swimming			●	●	●	●	●	●	●									7
Finals	1	2	3	1	5	3	2	2	4	4	4	5	4	5	6	7	7	65

FINA Congress 2009

As is customary with the World Championships, FINA will hold its biennial General Congress in Rome during the event, on July 24, 2009 beginning at 9:00 a.m.. At this meeting, the 22-member FINA Bureau (the executive board of the IF) will be elected for its 2009-2013 term. Per FINA rules, the Bureau will then elect the Executive officers from its members (i.e. President, Treasurer and Secretary).

In addition to the General Congress, Technical Congresses (TCs), or discipline-specific meetings, will be in each present discipline, as well as an Extraordinary Congress on Masters Rules. Dates for these meetings are:

• July 15: Diving TC, Open Water TC
• July 16: Synchronized Swimming TC, Water Polo TC
• July 23: Swimming TC, Masters EC.

Note: The Technical Congresses are scheduled to be held prior to both the start of competition within the given disciple and before the General Congress. Also note: only swimming does not have competition on the date of the General Congress.

Technological changes

FINA decided to ratify proposed changes to swimsuit design shortly before the 2009 World Aquatics Championships, allowing equipment and apparel manufacturers to use materials that were previously disallowed. These materials, which include polyurethane, have been claimed by some quarters to be performance enhancing. This claim can be seen to be supported by the large number of National Records, Championship Records and World Records that have been broken at this meet.News article In particular, the Arena X-Glide swimsuit, worn by German Paul Biedermann, has been largely pointed to as providing Biedermann a significant advantage and allowing him to break Ian Thorpe's 400m world record as well as in defeating Michael Phelps in the 200m freestyle.

See also

• 2009 in swimming
• Arena X-Glide

References

• Official Website (www.roma09.it) Template:It icon Template:En icon