It´s official, Guadalajara is to host the 2017 event. FINA had said they would only announce the 2017 host this year if they thought they had two outstanding candidates, which apparently they decided they did. Guadalajara is Mexico’s second most populous municipality at 1.5 million people, but has a booming metropolitan area of over 4 million.
The destination will have a test run before the World Championships, as they will host this summer’s PanAmerican Games that will have over 6,000 athletes competing across 36 sports. The pool for that event will be the Scotiabank Aquatics Center, which has been dubbed as “the Pool of the Pan.” It seats 3,593 spectators, and houses two 50-meter pools and a diving well.
“We will have a world championship in 2017 in which 2,500 elite athletes in five Olympic disciplines from about 200 countries and regions will participate. That is an unprecedented and historic event,” said Kiril Todorov, the president of the Mexican Swimming Federation.
Guadalajara will represent the first time the World Championships have taken place in the Western Hemisphere since 2005 in Montreal, and the 3rd-time ever that they will be hosted in Latin America. This was a bit of a “back to their roots” decision by FINA, as two out of the first four championships were also held in that region.
“Mexico has always been a great center for sports events and this has opened the doors for us to once again,” Mexico’s Sports Minister Bernardo de la Garza Herrera said in the statement, adding, “this is great news to our country.”
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