Swim Poll of the Week: Do You Believe FINA Took a Copycat Approach to the ISL With the CSS?
Channel: swimmingworldtv
Date: 2020-02-06

This is the Swim Poll of the Week for Thursday February 6, 2020, sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products. In our last poll, we wanted to know: Do you believe FINA took a copycat approach to the ISL in its construction of the FINA Champions Swim Series?

The International Swimming League has officially added a copycat charge to its complaints against FINA in the latest developments in its legal action at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The process is in its relative infancy yet: a formal discovery process is now underway, a trial scheduled for January 2022.

On December 16 last year, the court denied FINA’s motion to dismiss the cases brought by the ISL and, in parallel action, triple Olympic champion Katinka Hosszu, of Hungary, and USA teamsters Tom Shields and Michael Andrew, in 2018.

Updated claims lodged with the court 10 days ago include ISL’s view that FINA misappropriated the League’s format by aligning its competition and prize schedules to those already announced by the ISL.

FINA has three weeks to answer the claims, which chronology stretches to this: a charge of hindsight that attempted to circumnavigate the legal challenge in play. Only when the ISL initiated a legal challenge did FINA withdraw threats of sanctions against national governing bodies if they did not in turn impose sanctions on swimmers under their jurisdiction for associating themselves with a non-affiliated organization, namely the League.