Plans highlighted for 1998 World Swimming Championships

28/1/95

Spectator seating at the Superdrome will be nearly doubled in preparation for the World Swimming Championships, to be held in Perth in 1998.

The Superdrome - considered one of the world's best swimming venues - will be able to cater for 15,000 specators when global attention focuses on Perth for the high profile event.

Sport and Recreation Minister Norman Moore today highlighted the plans and announced that prominent sports administrator Tom Hoad would chair the Eighth World Swimming Championships organising committee.

Mr Moore also unveiled a huge banner before an audience of representatives of key swimming organisations, to launch symbolically the start of preparations for the event and the committee's work.  The launch included a diving display by the Western Australian Diving Association, which included potential representatives for Australia in the 1998 championships.

Mr Hoad has been involved in the last nine Olympic Games as a player, coach, official and television commentator, and he was also chair of the organising committee for the Sixth World Swimming Championships held in Perth in 1991.

Other organising committee members included:

·       Ian Laurance - WA Sports Centre Trust;

·       David Neesham - Australian Water Polo Association;

·       Tom Brazier - Australian Swimming Incorporated;

·       Evelyn Dill-Macky - Australian Swimming Incorporated;

·       Keith Murton - Australian Synchronised Swimming Association;

·       Robin Arlow - Australian Diving Association;

·       Alan Melchert - EventsCorp; and -

·       Hallam Preriera - representing the Minister.

Mr Jack Busch - the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Sport and Recreation - was an ex officio member.

"In exactly three years from now, Perth will play host to these prestigious championships, and the organising committee has a big job ahead to ensure everything is prepared and runs smoothly," Mr Moore said.

"I have no doubt that the spectacular success of the 1991 Championships will be repeated and that the 1998 event will generate much more for the State's economy than the $28 million injected four years ago."

The event will be held over 11 days in January 1998, including swimming, diving, men's and women's water polo and synchronised swimming at the Superdrome.  The long distance swim will be held over a 25-kilometre course on the river or in the ocean.

Mr Moore said the championships were expected to attract about 1,500 competitors and officials from 110 countries and an estimated world-wide viewing audience of millions.

Perth won the right to stage the event only after the Minister personally went to Rome as the head of a WA delegation to convince world swimming's goverrning body FINA.

It was unprecendented, and a huge credit to Perth's organising ability and facilities, that the same city would host two World Swimming Championships within just seven years.

Media contact:  Ross Storey 339 3972 / 321 1444 Mobile:  018 950 142