The eighteenth edition of the World Aquatics Championships has just ended in Gwangju in South Korea, but the fever for water sports stays very high. In a few months, to be precise next October, another extraordinary event of global importance will animate the life of the pools. This is the ISL, International Swimming League, a new team competition that will involve the best athletes of the world.
To make a comparison with soccer, this is the Champions League of swimming: only the stars can take part.
The challenge between the international swimming élite is born from the idea of the Ukrainian tycoon Konstantin Grigorishin and, after a series of cross-fights, will culminate with the final-show in Las Vegas on December 20-21.
Four European and four US teams will compete in three stages in the US (Indianapolis, Dallas and Washington DC) and three in Europe (Naples, Budapest and London); the goal is to increase the spectacularization of the races with a worldwide TV coverage which will allow swimming to become one of the most popular sports for media. The rest, of course, will be the protagonists of the pools.
But who are the stars that will race? At the moment the list of champions who have accepted this challenge is amazing:
- Katinka Hosszú
- Federica Pellegrini
- Cate Campbell
- Sarah Sjöström
- Mireia Belmonte
- Katie Ledecky
- Adam Peaty
- Nathan Adrian
- Ryan Murphy
- Chad le Clos
- Kyle Chalmers
- Florent Manaudou
The organisers are at work, all the details of this fantastic event will be formalized in a press conference next September.
30 July 2019
