Gladiatorial spirit awakens
by Craig Lord, LEN Magazine editor, on the seascape of swimming before the World Championships
Rome, the Eternal City, a magnificent place where the past and present meet and merge, where legacy collides with modernity, a living, breathing time-warp. When world-title racing gets underway in July in the fabulous cauldron of the Foro Italico, venue of the 1960 Olympic Games, it is the future that will come into focus. Indeed, a version of the future is already here: the warm-up for a world championships has never been hotter (see the comparison with 2005 further in the article) and swimmers incapable of making an Olympic semi-final last year have since become world-title hopes as progress on the clock has reached dizzying proportions.
