World Para Swimming Series to be Largest to Date

The 2019 World Para Swimming Series will feature events in eight countries across four continents, making it "the largest to date", World Para Swimming (WPS) has announced. The news was carried in Inside The Games as follows:

The 2019 series will be the third season of the competition, which brings together the world's best Para-swimmers. The latest series will begin in Melbourne in Australia, with the country one of three set to make their debut as hosts. That event will take place on February 15, with the Series also set to stop at Berlin in Germany, Indianapolis in the United States and São Paulo in Brazil, all of which have hosted before.

"The World Series was created to bring multiple opportunities to swimmers around the world, with a regular competition calendar for the elite athletes and, at the same time, a stage for young swimmers," WPS manager Tracey Glassford said. "We would like to thank the athletes, coaches, National Paralympic Committees and Organising Committees which helped making the 2018 World Series a huge success. We had more than 1,000 swimmers from 72 countries competing."

Cities in The Netherlands and Singapore will also debut as hosts in 2019, although exactly which city in The Netherlands will be used has not yet been decided. All athletes' results at each World Series edition are calculated using a standardised WPS points system via an online virtual competition platform.

According to WPS, the system ensures the overall World Series winner "will be the best performing athlete over the duration of the series".

The other host cities in 2019 will be Glasgow in Scotland and Lignano Sabbiadoro in Italy. 

Brazil's Daniel Dias won the men’s title last year and the year before, while the 2018 women’s title was won by Great Britain’s Louise Fiddes.

An award is also given to the best team, juniors and men’s and women’s S/SB 1-3 high support need swimmers.

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