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Teams arrive in Force

Dec 28, 1997  - Paul Quinlan

The French team for the 8th World Swimming Championships under the leadership of new Head Coach Fauqert Claude, has arrived in Perth with the goal of adding a gold medal to the previous best of one silver and two bronze by Catherine Plewinski in the same city in 1991. The team has come directly from a three week altitude training camp in the French Alps.

The Russian team minus their champion sprinter Alexandre Popov arrived on Christmas Day. Popov has elected to remain in Canberra, Australia, where he will complete his rraining and fly in on 5 January, only three days before the main competition for the FINA World Swimming Championships starts.

Five teams, Slovenia, Croatia, Great Britain, Poland and Switzerland arrived yesterday 27 December, with another four due to touchdown today - Belgium, Canada, Finland and South Africa.

Meanwhile the Swedish team has been acclimatising in an outdoor pool two thousand plus kilometres to the east in Adelaide, and are expected to move to Perth at the end of this week.

For those teams coming from the northern hemisphere a great deal of acclimatising will be necessary with the host city experiencing its hottest days for the festive season in one instance the hottest day in 67 years. Daily maximum shade temperatures have ranged from 28 to 41°C in the past week. More hot weather is expected in the period leading into the Championships.