American swimmers Caleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky added a golden sheen to the World Swimming Championships, the wheel of which is turning again after a three-year hiatus, especially after the last championship in 2019 in Gwangju, South Korea, by holding a global wedding in the Hungarian capital Budapest between June 18 and the third. July next year.

As with other sports, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to the swimming competition calendar, prompting FINA leaders to cancel many competitions and world championships in recent years, eventually agreeing to hold replicas every year. to the Olympic Games to be held in Paris in 2024.

The World Championships, which include competitions in Olympic swimming, open water, diving, artistic swimming and water polo, are usually held biennially in odd-numbered years. But the Covid-19 virus disrupted this rhythm.

First, the 2021 World Cup, which was scheduled in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, was rescheduled for the spring of 2022. Then, at the beginning of this year, the International Federation announced a new postponement, for the summer of 2023, due to the context of health.

As a result of the virus, which also caused the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to be postponed by one year, the 2023 Doha World Cup has been pushed back to January 2024, six months before the Paris Olympics.

A week after formalizing the changes to the global calendar, the International Federation decided to add a new version of the World Championship to the 2022 program, which will be held in Budapest from the current 18th, knowing that the Hungarian capital hosted the 2017 championship.

As for the competitions in Budapest, American stars Dressel and Ledecky (25 years old each) seem like candidates to continue to shine in the relentless pursuit of medals.

– ‘I felt lost’ –

Dressel has a chance to win seven gold medals. However, in a statement to the American journalist Graham Bensinger, who specializes in the recognition of great sports champions, “I felt very lost” after winning five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, because he did not achieve his goals. “I thought I could swim faster.”

“I wanted to get away from the water and sit in my room with the door closed and not talk to anyone, but at the same time, the pool was one of the places where I feel more safe. So it was a difficult moment. Yes, I have been miserable for several months.”

Today, after withdrawing from several competitions in the fall and changing coaches, the Olympic champion finally confirmed that he is feeling better mentally: “I needed time away from all this.”

“At the end (January) I started to feel good. I had good results in training, which I had not done before. It was nice to be back.”

For her part, Ledecky has won 10 Olympic medals and 18 World Championships.

She said she was ready for this world event, adding in a statement to US media, “Of course, I have always appreciated the quality of swimming over sleeves and medals.”

“I never set myself the goal of winning a certain number of medals or records,” she added.

Ledecky has a chance to win the championship’s first gold medal on opening night in the 400m freestyle. But the question is whether she can restore her world record by Australian Ariarn Titmus, who broke it at the Australian Championships in May last year.

Titmus, who won gold in the 400m in Tokyo, chose not to compete in the World Championships in Budapest as she will not be defending her 400m freestyle title she won in 2019 in Gwangju, South Korea, in order to focus on the Commonwealth. Games are scheduled in Birmingham (July 29 to August 3).

Nicknamed “The Terminator” after former actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, Titmus won silver in the 800m and bronze in the 4x200m relay at the Tokyo Olympics.

– Russia excluded –

Simply put, Russia is excluded from the World Cup, like Belarus, due to the invasion of Ukraine. She placed third in the 2019 Gwangju medal table with 16 medals.

They then competed at the Tokyo Olympics on behalf of the Russian Olympic Committee and won five medals, including two gold medals for Yevgeny Rylov, who was suspended by the International Federation for nine months for attending a rally in support of President Vladimir Putin in his decision to invade Ukraine.

On the other hand, the best Ukrainian swimmer Mykhailo Romanchuk, who has silver in the 1500m freestyle and bronze in the 800m freestyle in Tokyo, is hoping to attract attention at least once.

China will be one of the most prominent competitors in Budapest, but in terms of the level of its representatives and representatives. The Chinese delegation list included 45 swimmers and swimmers, including Xun Wang, gold medalist in the 200m medley in Tokyo, and Zhang Yufei, who won the 200m butterfly, but their training was surrounded by Covid-19. which resulted in the cancellation of two scheduled competitions (Chinese Championship and Chinese Spring Championship) for the selection of the Chinese team last April.