James Christie

The International Swimming Federation voted yesterday to close the door on Montreal's financially plagued world aquatics championships, but last night, the city's mayor tried to pry it open again, vowing fresh financing that would meet the contract requirements of the federation, commonly known by its French initials, FINA.

Organizers, unable to rally corporate support for the 160-country event, fell at least $6-million short of their $36.5-million budget, and FINA officially took it off their hands yesterday morning.

But Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay defiantly said in a news conference that he will not accept the withdrawal of the championships, originally scheduled for July 17 to 31.

"We will provide the financial guarantees so that the event can be held in Montreal despite what went on between FINA and the organizers. "We have a contract with FINA and we expect it to be honoured."

The mayor set up a committee to find companies to close the funding gap and is lobbying FINA for a stay of execution. However, FINA said earlier it was opening up a bid process and wants a new host city by Feb. 15. Olympic host Athens has been invited to apply and German's swimming federation is interested.

Provincial and federal sport ministers both said last night they support the effort to get the championships back in Montreal's newly built pools. They clung to hopes that FINA would reconsider and said their governments' financial commitments remain in place.

Jean-Marc Fournier, Quebec's Minister of Municipal Affairs, with responsibility for sport and recreation, said "with the Montreal proposal, I hope FINA changes its position."

Stephen Owen, the federal Minister of State for sport, said he was "holding onto threads if there can be some reversal late in the day."

The event, which includes swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and endurance swimming, was expected to draw more than 2,000 athletes and their coaches to Montreal, making it the largest multisport event in the city since the 1976 Olympics.

While governments contributed an estimated $28.4-million of the budget and built new pools at �le-Sainte-Helene, about 300 entreaties to private sponsors generated little interest.

David Bedford, a water polo official who works in sports marketing with the International Management Group, said part of the problem stemmed from the way FINA insisted the championship be handled as a property. FINA had already marketed a number of major aspects of the event for its own benefit, leaving only some local openings for Montreal organizers.

"They could not sell off the name of the event because FINA insisted it be called the FINA World Championships," Bedford said. "They wouldn't budge on it. And no one in North America knows what FINA championships are. They've never been here before."

Montreal organizers took FINA's unanimous decision yesterday morning with "deep regret." In a statement, they said: "The organizing committee always remained confident that it could organize successful championships in Montreal. However, the decision from FINA is the result of the various partners not able to come to a compromise on the financing."

"It's a sad day for Montreal and Canada," said Linda Cuthbert, the president of the Aquatic Federation of Canada. "It's setting Canadian sport back several years.

"There are questions in the international community about Canada's commitment to sport. Any federation looking at hosting an event in the next 10 years, you can be sure they won't have confidence in our ability to host it."

The uprooting of the championships was called a "devastating" disappointment by Canadian athletes. Richard Pound, an International Olympic Committee member and the co-chairman of the FINA championships, said the removal of the event is an embarrassing black mark that will hinder Canada's future bids for major sports events.

Athletes scheduled to appear at the event included Canadian diver Alexandre Despatie, a silver medalist in the three-metre springboard at the Athens Olympics last year, and Canadians �milie Heymans and Blythe Hartley, bronze medalists in the women's 10-metre synchronized diving event.

Pound concurred that the limited marketing possibilities left open to organizers by FINA hamstrung the organizers, who "overreached" when they bid for the event in 2001 and beat out Melbourne, Australia, and Long Beach, Calif., by a single vote.

"They weren't left enough marketing rights to make it worthwhile," Pound said. "Now, it looks pretty bad for trying to bring major events to Canada. "

Pound said a successful Vancouver Olympics in 2010 would wipe the bad memory clean. But the federal sport minister, Owen, and organizers of the 2007 under-20 world championships of soccer said Pound's dooming of future sport ventures was overstated.

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