10 things you didn’t know about the World Aquatics Championship

There are only a couple days left until the 2017 World Aquatics Championship kicks off at Budapest, for the first time hosted by Hungary, so szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu has collected 10 facts that you might not have known about the event.

1. It is the World Championships for aquatic sports such as swimming, diving, high diving, open water swimming, synchronised swimming, and water polo. The “FINA” part of the official name is the abbreviation of Fédération Internationale de Natation, the name of the national association for aquatic sports.

2. Originally, Guadalajara was supposed to host this year’s championship, but Hungary took over the task when they withdrew in February 2015. This means, that this championship was organised in the shortest time ever since Hungary only had 2 years to make this real.

3. Hungary participated with really good achievements in the past: after the 2015 championship, Hungary had 31 gold-, 24 silver- and 28 bronze medals altogether, won by swimmers and polo players. Hungary is seventh, concerning the number of medals won, the USA is the leader of the board with 227 gold-, 180 silver- and 125 bronze medals.

4. At the 1991 world championship, at Perth, Australia, the Hungarian participants won 5 gold-, 2 silver- and 2 bronze medals. Both Krisztina Egerszegi and Tamás Darnyi were world champions in 2 categories each.

5. The opening ceremony at Budapest invites you for a special experience: there will be four barges, all of them weighing 1600 tonnes, stages altogether sized 3000 square metres, 2000 costumes, 40 drones and over 510 artists participating.

6. 76 world champion titles in 6 different categories wait for the competitors to win them in the following 16 days.

7. The newly built Danube Arena is the most special among the venues, where there are 5 pools and 12 ten-story apartment houses could be fit into the pools. 15000 spectators could be fit into the arena, but the scaffolding will be dismantled after the championship so that only 6000 people could fit in there. The remaining elements will be recycled.

Photo: fina-budapest2017.com

8. The venue over the lake at Városliget is the first swimming pool ever in the history of the world championship that is not built in a stadium but in nature.

9. 85000 spectators are expected to come to the event, so it has great touristic significance as well.

10. Some of the venues, like the Danube Arena built close to the Pest side of the Árpád bridge, or the Hajós Alfréd National Swimming Stadium at Margaret Island, or the high diving venue on the Danube, are accessible via boat as they are built along the Danube.

featured photo: Gergely Botár

Ce: bm

Source: szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu