LEN has allocated its top event the 2022 European Aquatics Championships to the Italian city of Rome, which shall host the event for the second time after 1983. The showcase is set to take place in Italy’s capital on 11-21 August.
Rome will welcome the best athletes of European Aquatics in 2022 in swimming, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and – as a historical milestone – in high diving. The event is set to see the participation of 1,500 athletes representing 52 nations.
“I’m pleased to announce that LEN has chosen Rome as the host of the 2022 edition of our top event, the European Aquatics Championships” LEN President Paolo Barelli said.
“I’m sure that we shall witness another memorable event in our magnificent Foro Italico complex, site of many great championships in the past, and the other venues will also show the beauties of our Eternal City.”
The bid was strongly supported by the Italian Government, the City of Rome and the Lazio Region, as it had been revealed at a LEN site visit in late November.
On that occasion Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi received a LEN delegation and she said that the City embraced the bid in full. The bid is also strongly supported by LEN Partner Eurovision (EBU).
EBU and LEN recently met and agreed that Rome is the perfect city to host another exceptional edition of the European Aquatics Championships based on both the unique appeal of the city and the exceptional ideas behind the project outlined in the bid.
Discussions for the integration of the 2022 LEN European Aquatics Championships into the multisport European Championships are currently ongoing, and strongly supported also by EBU.
According to the first masterplan presented, the 2022 European Championships will be reminiscent of the 2009 World Champs as the globally renowned complex of Foro Italico will host the swimming and the diving competitions and a temporary pool would be set up in the adjacent tennis centre to accommodate the artistic swimming events.
Open water swimming would return to the coasts of Rome (Ostia) where the Italian Swimming Federations has its training centre which can serve as the practice site as well.
As a novelty, Rome is considering to stage the first-ever European Championships in high diving.
For this highly spectacular discipline LEN is evaluating the possibility and feasibility to stage it at an iconic site of Rome, including among others the premises of the Vatican, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Colisseum or other areas of Rome, which would make the event memorable for many years to come.
2 December 2019