FUTURE world short-course swimming championships are expected to be more crowd-friendly following a clever announcement overnight from FINA, the sport’s world governing body.

As Australia’s swimmers continue to turn the water at the current championships in Melbourne gold, FINA from its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, has declared that future short-course meets will be conducted across the pool (pictured at top).

“Seeing an Olympic pool is 25 metres wide, the move is so logical we’re surprised no-one has thought of it before,” a FINA spokesperson told The Bug.

“It means existing rules as to the number of dolphin kicks and how long swimmers are allowed to stay underwater don’t need to be changed.

“More importantly, the sixteen starting blocks will cut in half the number of heats required for each event, making the experience faster and more exciting for those watching.”

The Bug understands FINA also considered reducing the width of pools for future world short-course championship to 12 metres to make them even more exciting for those in the stadium.

But they realised that really tall swimmers could simply lunge across the pool and win the blue-riband 12-metre freestyle dash in just a matter of seconds, making the whole concept of short-course swimming really quite silly.

The next FINA short-course world championships in two years in Barcelona, Spain, are expected to last for two days and one night session.