2004 FINA Masters Championships

Greetings from a Masters Swimmer in Florence Italy (Mary Lokken, originally from Berkeley, California)! It's great to see you all chatting about the upcoming World Championships... I wish I'd seen this post before! I would have dived in with some info for you, whatever I have... First of all, may I say that all of the Italian Masters are really excited about the meet - and waiting for you with open arms! We're a great bunch of old swimmers (more than 10,000 now on the peninsula). Our forum is at Quelli che il Nuoto which means "Those Who Swim"... I'll put a post there right after this to tell them all to hop over to this forum and take a look! Some of your questions: QTs - we're as perplexed as you all are. We're all trying hard as we can for times, and at meets results are posted with TL for "tempo limite" which means we're qualified. However, it's true that no official proof is necessary. If you don't make the time at the meet, you'll just get a "NT" result. Italian Meet Organization - For those of you who have little faith in Italian organization, I've been to a lot of meets here, and have to say so far, GREAT! So, keep your fingers crossed. Registration - We're having the same problems as you! Anyway, each team is just sending off all the docs + $ to the FIN office in Rome. Accomodations - If you haven't gotten that arranged yet, I'd hurry! There's a link on the official FINA site which I think is quite good. The Pool - The President of my team Nuoto Club Firenze is on the LEN (European Swimming League) Committee, and went to Riccione to inspect the complex specifically for this event. My understanding was that the olympic pool we'll be using is NEW, and therefore has not been tried for a meet.... ie: we don't know if it's a fast pool or not. But what the heck! We're there for the fun! I'll check this post more often from now on to see if there are any new questions I can help with. I'll be in Riccione almost the whole time (50 + 100 free, 50 + 100 back, 50 fly and 3KM in the sea!) so I hope to meet some of you! Cheers! Mary Lokken Florence Italy

Greating from a Master swimmmer and coach in Milan, friend of Maryyy The Pool is going to test in May with Italian Police Championship or same!!!! The open pool is old but the close one is new See you soon (like Maryyyyy I try to visit often this topic!)

Latest News From Italy: I spoke with the Prez of my team yesterday evening over pizza and asked him what I can tell you all about the Stadio del Nuoto, the facilities where the Championships will be held (he's there today for another inspection)... - The NEW 50 meter 10 lane INDOOR pool (which is still empty, that is, no water in it) will be opened with an inauguration ceremony on May 9th. It WILL be open for us in June - this is sure. It will be a beautiful structure, built according to all the modern technology, so it should be fast. But as we all know with these things, you don't really know until you try it, sort of like an opera house and its accoustics... - The rest of the facilities, 50m and 25m outdoor pool and 25m indoor pool, and surrounding park (as described in on the FINA site) are tried and true. He assures me that it is an really nice facility, and we'll all fit in very comfortably. There will be one 25m pool constantly available for warm-up... - The races will take place in both the indoor and outdoor 50m pools, with men's and women's races alternating pools daily. Therefore, for the moment it's not possible to know which race you'll be doing indoor or outdoor. In the end he said "Hey, tell them - we're going to have FUN!" So, come on down - the water's fine!! Mary Florence, Italy

Like Maryyyy said, the open pool is fast. My team test it last year for Italian UISP Championship!!!!