The FINA Diving World Cup, an April Olympic qualifier in Tokyo that was canceled last week, has been rescheduled for May 1-6 in the Japanese capital.
“FINA takes the opportunity to express its gratitude to the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, Japanese Government and the IOC for their commitment to confirming the arrangements for the events and once more reiterates its confidence on a very successful staging of the Olympic Games this summer in Tokyo,” according to a press release. “The Government of Japan, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and local governments across Japan continue to work together to jointly address the COVID-19 situation and ensure the safety and security of all competitors.”
Last week, FINA’s interim executive director sent a letter to national federations saying that the World Cup, originally scheduled for April 18-23, was canceled. The letter cited an inadequate Covid health and protection plan, associated additional costs, visa procedures not being ready and a three-day quarantine impacting travel arrangements.
FINA later issued a statement, saying a decision on reallocating the World Cup, and other Olympic qualifiers in artistic swimming and open-water swimming, was under review. After that, FINA’s website listed the World Cup as canceled. It is now listed as “TBC.”
FINA also announced Friday that an open-water swimming Olympic qualifier in Fukuoka from May 29-30 has been moved to Portugal from June 19-20. The Portuguese site hosted Olympic open-water qualifiers in 2012 and 2016.
A decision on an artistic swimming qualifier originally scheduled for May 1-4 in Tokyo will be made in the coming days.
The U.S. qualified three open-water swimmers for the Olympics in 2019 and cannot qualify any more. The U.S., which hasn’t yet qualified any artistic swimmers for Tokyo, is expected to compete in the artistic swimming qualifier
In diving, China is the lone nation to so far qualify the full complement of divers for the Tokyo Games. The U.S. is among the nations expected to compete at the World Cup, looking to earn Olympic spots in synchronized events and women’s springboard after filling up spots in other events in 2019.
USA Diving canceled its World Cup team trials due to the pandemic, electing to send the team that was selected in December 2019 for the World Cup that was originally scheduled for April 2020.
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