FINA is considering a request from the IOC and its broadcast partner the NBC television network in the United States to turn the normal run of events in the pool on its head at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008: heats at night and finals in the morning - to suit US broadcast times.

The ruling FINA Bureau simply noted at its recent meeting in Shanghai that "the Olympic Games is an IOC event and that FINA would like to continue the excellent relation with the IOC as stake-holder of the Games". Mustapha Larfaoui, president of FINA, is to hold talks with the IOC over its request.

Meanwhile, someone might care to ask the coaches, swimmers, sports scientists and all those who work for years on end for what is often one moment of glory or tragedy at the Olympic Games. If they are not stakeholders, then who is?

Alan Thompson, head coach to Australia, said that the wider swimming community should be involved in that discussion and believed that, with just over two years to run until Beijing, it is already too late to change the normal run of events.

"If the sports science tells us that we can get the best swims out of kids in the morning, fine. But there's no indication of that. Who would a decision like that suit? What purpose would it serve? In many ways its already too late ... we need to rehearse these things. If it's going to happen then every meet between now and then shpould be along the same lines."

Thompson added: "One thing you cant sell is the integrity of the sport. The thing you have to strive for is to get the best perfofmsaces possible. If sports scientists decide that holding swimming finals in the mroning is the best way to go, let's start thinking about it and doing it but let's not do it at the number one event in some kids' lives. We have to be bigger than that. NBC will still broadcast it if its the other way round.

"The integrity of the sport must be maintained. If the decision was taken today it would not give anyone enough opportunity to work that into their system. What do we do at our Olympic trials. We've convinced Channel Nine to go with what we do. We'd want to do it like we'll have to at the Games."

Thompson's predecessor, Don Talbot, agreed with that point but suggested that conditions are always the same for all competitors at the Olympic Games. "You have to be ready for whatever comes your way. But FINA have to be fair. The whole world should know what's happening at the same time. If one nation, say the US, were to get to know the news well in advance that would give them an advantage. That shouldn't happen. If there are going to be morning finals in Beijing, coaches need to know now."

Bill Sweetenham, the Australian at the helm of British Swimming, backed that view. "The sooner we know, and know all at the same time, the better we can prepare."

That NBC should call the shots in terms of when and how swimming stages the biggest meet in the sport is something few should be happy about. But if such sorry roads are to be taken, then the wheels of bureaucracy need to turn more rapidly. Mr President - fifth gear and get that decision made please, is the message from the elite coaches and competitors who keep your world afloat.

Speculation that NBC may get its way has already reached the ears of those who plan their sport: while Britain will send a youth team to the inaugural World Junior Championships in Rio de Janeiro in August specifically because heats will be staged in the evening, finals the next morning, Germany had adopted a similar model for its trials for the European Championships in Budapest.

Germany's trials will be staged in Berlin later this motnh, with heats at 5pm and the finals of those events held at noon and 1pm the following day.

Swimming finals have been held in the morning before at the Olympic Games: in Seoul in 1988, half the programme was organised in that way before reverting to the normal run of events.