RIO DE JANEIRO -- Olympic bid city Rio de Janeiro have been forced to cancel a stage in the World Cup swimming calendar because of lack of funds, the Brazilian Aquatic Sports Confederation (CBDA) told AFP on Wednesday.
A CBDA official said they had informed world swimming body FINA that they did not have the necessary funding to organise the short-course swimming event from October 23-25 at the Maracana Complex in Rio de Janeiro.
The event would have cost an estimated $500,000.
The CBDA official blamed the "heavy expenditure" incurred by sending swimmers to the world championships in Rome and to several aquatic events throughout the world this year.
Brazil's Olympic and world swimming champion Cesar Cielo, who is presently in Copenhagen to support Rio's bid for the 2016 Olympics, told the daily Estado de Sao Paulo that the situation highlighted the gulf between the money lavished on the Rio-2016 campaign, estimated at 50 million dollars, and the reality for swimming in his country.
He said that swimming in Brazil was "going through a bad period" and said he found it both "incredible and inexplicable" that they could not find the money for this event,
FINA, meanwhile, said they would support the Brazilian organisers if they decided to host the event in 2010.
AFP.
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