FINA World Swimming Championships 2022: When and where are the biennial swimming and aquatic sports championships, what's the prize money and how to watch in the UK?

A combination of pandemic delays, cancellations and Olympic scheduling has meant that there will be a special ‘extraordinary edition’ of the biggest competition in swimming.

Originally the FINA World Championships were set to take place in Japan in 2021, two years after the 2019 South Korean Games, but were delayed first to accomodate the Olympic Games and then again due to pandemic-related issues.

So as to not leave a four year gap, it was announced that a special event would take place this year – meaning that there will be a FINA World Championships in four consecutive years for the first time ever.

Next year will see the long-awaited Japanese event, followed a year-delayed 2024 championship in Qatar, and then returning to its usual biennial status starting in 2025 in Russia.

Here’s what you need to know about this year’s event.

The Championships will take place from June 18 – July 3.

The Championships will be held across a number of venues in Hungary.

The Danube Arena will host the swimming and diving events, while the open water swimming will be held at Lake Lupa.

Meanwhile the Alfréd Hajós National Swimming Stadium will host artistic swimming and water polo, with water polo also taking place at the Debrecen Swimming Pool, the Szeged Swimming Pool, and in Sopron.

There will be a total of 74 events spread across five disciplines – swimming, open water swimming, artistic swimming, diving and water polo.

Athletes from 207 FINA members are eligible to compete, two less than in 2019 due to FINA banning all Russians and Belarusians from competing at the championships following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In 2019 competitors from 192 countries took part – an all-time record.

The United States tops the all-time