World Aquatics

World Aquatics, known for most of its history as FINA (French: Fédération internationale de natation; English: International Swimming Federation), is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administering international competition in water sports. Along with bodies such as World Athletics and World Rugby, it is one of the international federations that governs a given sport, or group of disciplines, on behalf of both the IOC and the wider sporting community. It has been headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, since 1986, although a phased move to Budapest, Hungary, was under way through the mid-2020s. Founded on 19 July 1908 in London as FINA, the federation coordinated amateur competition in swimming, diving and water polo before gradually extending its authority to open water swimming, artistic (formerly synchronised) swimming and high diving. It changed its operating name to World Aquatics in January 2023, seven months after its Congress approved the change and a new constitution. The organisation is led by a president and a Bureau elected by a Congress of member federations, and its day-to-day affairs are run by an Executive under a Director. As of the mid-2020s, World Aquatics counted more than 210 national member federations, grouped into five continental associations, making it one of the larger international sport federations recognised by the IOC. World Aquatics organises the biennial World Aquatics Championships, the sport's flagship event and the largest single gathering of its six disciplines, as well as a calendar of discipline-specific world cups, world series and junior championships, and it sets the competition programme for aquatics events at the Summer Olympics. Since 2021 the federation has been led by Kuwaiti sports administrator Husain Al-Musallam, whose tenure has been marked by a rebranding of the organisation, a new constitution, an overhaul of its finances and prize-money structure, and, at...