The FINA Swimming World Cup is an international series of short course (25 m) swimming meets organized by FINA, the International Federation for swimming. The series was started in the 1988/1989, and is open to swimmers from FINA member countries.
The series has traditionally been held in the northern hemisphere's winter-time (October-February range), placing it within the normal short course competition times for many countries (with long course competition predominating in summer months). In some years, the World Cup has been held across a New Year's, leading to dual-year designations for a given series (e.g. "2004-2005 World Cup"), and in other years, the series has been held entirely on one side of a New Year's Day, leading to a single year description. This latter is the current format in place (e.g. the "2010 World Cup").
Currently, the overall 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers are awarded prize money.
Famous quotes containing the words swimming, world and/or cup:
“Loosed betwixt eye and lid, the swimming beams
Of memory, blind school of cuttlefish,
Rise to the air, plunge to the cold streams....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)