10 things you didn’t know about the World Aquatics Championship

There are only a couple days left until the 2017 World Aquatics Championship kicks off at Budapest, for the first time hosted by Hungary, so szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu has collected 10 facts that you might not have known about the event.

1. It is the World Championships for aquatic sports such as swimming, diving, high diving, open water swimming, synchronised swimming, and water polo. The “FINA” part of the official name is the abbreviation of Fédération Internationale de Natation, the name of the national association for aquatic sports.

2. Originally, Guadalajara was supposed to host this year’s championship, but Hungary took over the task when they withdrew in February 2015. This means, that this championship was organised in the shortest time ever since Hungary only had 2 years to make this real.

3. Hungary participated with really good achievements in the past: after the 2015 championship, Hungary had 31 gold-, 24 silver- and 28 bronze medals altogether, won by swimmers and polo players. Hungary is seventh, concerning the number of medals won, the USA is the leader of the board with 227 gold-, 180 silver- and 125 bronze medals.

4. At the 1991 world championship, at Perth, Australia, the Hungarian participants won 5 gold-, 2 silver- and 2 bronze medals. Both Krisztina Egerszegi and Tamás Darnyi were world champions in 2 categories each.

5. The opening ceremony at Budapest invites you for a special experience: there will be four barges, all of them weighing 1600 tonnes, stages altogether sized 3000 square metres, 2000 costumes, 40 drones and over 510 artists participating.