The 16th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) 2022 - or the World Short-Course Championships - concluded today in Melbourne, Australia after five days of competition.

First held in 1993, the biennial short-course worlds were held in back-to-back years in 2022 for the first time since 1999/2000, when the event switched to an even-year format, and as a result of the Covid-19 impacted sports schedule. This was the first time Australia has ever hosted the championships - and awarded after the war-related disqualification of the original planned host Kazan Russia - which feature Olympic swimming distances in a 'short-course' pool of 25 meters in length (vs an Olympic-distance pool of 50 meters). Typically, swimmers use short-course racing as training and preparation for long-course.

In the end, Team USA topped the medal table with 17 gold and 36 overall, with host Team Australia second with 13 and 26. Ryan Murphy and Maggie Mac Neil were honored as 'Best Athletes' for the championships. 14 world records, 6 world junior records, and 23 championships records were set during the week, with 24 national teams earning at least one medal - including Cayman Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

Congrats to all the winners! A photo gallery recap of all the 2022 champions is below, and complete results can be found online at fina.org.

Ilona Maher enjoys a dip in a pool.

Harry Gardside is focused on the new year.

Ferhat Arican celebrates winter.

Nijel Amos gives a good smile.

Arturas Seja makes a new friend.

Originally scheduled for Chingqing, China, the IWF World Weightlifting Championships 2022 ended today in Bogota, Colombia after 12 days of action in the Gran Carpa Americas Corferias arena.

The first championships go back to 1891, with women having their first championships in 1987. Since 1990, the championships have been combined for both men and women; 2022 represents the 26th such edition. This is only the fourth time Latin America has hosted the championships, after 1968's Mexico City, 1973's Havana, and 2006's Santo Domingo editions.

Competition was held across ten weight classes for both men and women, and served as the first of key weightlifting qualifiers to the Paris 2024 Summer Games. Note, only five weight classes in each gender are Olympic categories: 61kg, 73kg, 89kg, 102kg, and 102+kg for men, and 49kg, 59kg, 71kg, 81kg, and 81kg+ for women. In line with current sporting world sanctions, Team Russia and Team Belarus athletes did not compete, in response to the war in Ukraine.

Team China topped the medal table with six gold and 12 overall total category 'big' medals (or, 34 total, including indivdiual snatch and clean & jerk 'small' medals). Host Team Colombia finished with eight overall total medals for second place.

Congratulations to all of the champions! Complete results can be found online at iwf.sport. And, a quick photo gallery recap of the total (combining snatch + clean & jerk) 2022 winners is below. (All photos are IWF video screenshots unless noted.)

Georgian weightlifter Jambulat Khoperia killed on the battlefield while supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

More weightlifting: Tokyo 2020 Olympian Cyrille Tchachet urges support for fellow lifters and prospective Refugee Team members.

Soccer star Lionel Messi is 'the maestro' leading Team Argentina into the World Cup final.

Beijing 2008 soccer Olympian Stu Holden gets a fashion deal with Lotto, unique for a commentator.

Freestyle skiers Fanny Smith and Daniel Maier to both have a bronze medal from Beijing 2022...

What's on Olympic medalist Gus Kenworthy's plate now that he's fully retired from freestyle skiing?

Equestrian dressage rider Aleksandra Maksakova finds a competitive solution for her road to Paris 2024 though Team Palestine.

"It's when I most enjoy playing basketball, when it's with the national team." NBA star Kristaps Porzingis looks ahead to Team Latvia's first FIBA World Cup appearance.

Karlos Nasar: An 18-year-old ends his World Weightlifting Championships experience on a surprising high note.

Diver Tom Daley talks fatherhood, knitting, Greg Louganis, and more in Queerty's 'Dishin' It' Q&A series.

Former Olympic water polo player Waneek Horn-Miller opens up on her push to combat abuse in sport.

Down the Blue Carpet: WTCS champion Leo Bergere discusses his 'long journey' to a surprise major triathlon win.

More triathlon as Rio 2016 champion Gwen Jorgenson announces a return to training with eyes on Paris.

Breaststroker Nic Fink is 'taking a relaxed approach' to this year's World Short Course Championships.

World Athletics: Get to know Team Cuba swimmer Elisbet Gamez Matos.

Team Brazil swim veteran Nicholas Santos closes out his career in style.

Road cyclist Mathieu van der Poel gets a reprieve in his assault charge saga.

Olympic sailor Francesca Clapcich secures a seat in 11th Hour Racing Team for the Ocean Race next year.

IFSC recently talked with sport climber Alannah Yip...go-karting, Sean McColl, Scotland, and more.

Olympic champion Carissa Moore is the first surfer and Hawaiian to win the prestigious Sullivan Award.

Tokyo 2020 champion Takuto Otoguro set for a long-anticipated return to the wrestling mat this month.

11 prospective Olympians are announced as Refugee Athlete Scholarship winners, spanning judo, cycling, taekwondo, track & field, wrestling, and boxing. Congrats and best of luck for Paris 2024!

Munich 1972 400-meter track medalists Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett receive a pardon from the IOC after 50 years.

Inquiring minds want to know...is middle-distance track star Nijel Amos dating a Miss Botswana?

800-meter track legend David Rudisha has a close call while flying home.

Pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis has his sights on flying high all the way through this unique five years of global championships.

Tennis Olympians Iga Swiatek, Barbora Krejcikova & Katerian Siniakova, Maria Sakkari, and Ons Jabeur are amongst the honorees for the season-ending WTA Awards for 2022.

And...tennis superstar Rafael Nadal finally gets a 'Fan's Favorite' honor from the ATP tour.

Alpine skier Marco Odermatt and track sprinter Mujinga Kambundji are Switzerland's top athletes for 2022. (But tennis legend gets a mention, too...)

Fast Girls (2020)
A Quick Book Review

Boy, am I embarrassed. It's taken me way too long to get to, and finish, 2020's Fast Girls by Elise Hooper. Between day-to-day distractions, my day job, not dedicating enough reading time...etc....I just hadn't gotten through it. Until now, thankfully.

To be clear, my procrastination should not be seen a reflection against the work. It's truly a gripping read that is warranted a straight-through read with little interruption.

Subtitled A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team, Fast Girls is much more. Centered on the experience of track stars Betty Robinson, Helen Stephens, and Louise Stokes, the novel starts us eight years earlier in 1928 when Robinson first experiences the Olympics in Amsterdam, one of the advance guard of female athletes defying 'hysterical feminism' to compete.

From there, we are introduced to Stephens and Stokes, as all three follow wildly different paths and experiences en route to the Olympics. Whether through battling misogyny, pervasive racism, injury, or the financial effects of the depression, their individual journeys are presented in such compelling and vivid details, Hooper's work is a fascinating look into the hard work and perseverance these embattled athletes undertook to fulfill dreams.

Along the way, additional characters, particularly Stokes' companion in racially-inflicted trauma and disappointment, Tidye Pickett, add depth and emphasis to the experiences. Likewise, we're presented with eye-opening characterizations of legends Stella Walsh and Babe Didrikson, as well as the colorful swimmer Eleanor Holm.

Presented as a historical novel, Fast Girls offers a sense of realism that is easy to embrace. How much liberty Hooper has taken is hard to measure for the lay reader, which would be common amongst such works. In the afterword, Hooper acknowledges a late key supporting character is an amalgamation of multiple real-life Olympians, and that a dearth of information on Stokes led to some creative license in the painting of her experience.

Another quibble is what seems an abrupt end to the novel. Billed as a story leading to success at Berlin 1936, the actual accounts of action from those Games only fills the last pages. One is left wanting a follow-through on how the Olympics shaped these women, and how their returns to various homes unfolded. A postscript is offered, granted, but this reader was so invested in each woman's story that more was desired.

That said, Fast Girls presents a captivating understanding of these athletes, and the times in which they competed. It's a definite recommended read for Olympic fans, and an important one for understanding the socio-political context under which these women found themselves.

Consider purchasing Fast Girls from Games and Rings' Bookshop collection, from where you'll find a selection of curated Olympic-inspired and related books.