CNN
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Male athletes might be allowed to compete in Olympic Inventive Swimming occasions for the primary time on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games, the aquatic sports activities’ world governing physique FINA mentioned on Thursday.
The information comes after the Worldwide Olympic Committee authorized World Aquatics’ request to allow the inclusion of males on the Video games. Inventive Swimming was often known as Synchronized Swimming till 2017.
On the Paris Olympics, males might be permitted within the staff Inventive Swimming occasion. Every staff is made up of eight athletes, with a most of two males allowed per staff.
“This can be a day of celebration for individuals who have campaigned for the inclusion of males within the sport on the Olympic Video games and who’ve pioneered males’s participation,” mentioned FINA in a press release.
Males have been allowed to compete within the sport on the World Aquatics Championships since 2015.
“Aquatics sports activities are common and males have confirmed themselves to be glorious creative swimmers,” World Aquatics President Husain Al-Musallam mentioned of the rule change.
“I look ahead to seeing this new dimension of creative swimming being shared with the world in Paris. The inclusion of males in creative swimming is a superb credit score to all those that have labored for a few years to make this occur.”
American athlete Invoice Could, who turned the inaugural winner of the combined duet technical occasion alongside Christina Jones in 2015, hailed the landmark announcement.
“The inclusion of males in Olympic Inventive Swimming was as soon as thought-about the unimaginable dream,” Could mentioned.
“This proves that we should always all dream massive. The male athletes have endured. Now, by means of their perseverance and the assistance and assist of so many, all athletes might stand alongside one another equally, reaching for Olympic glory,” Could added.
