The 2002 Asian Games swimming programme got underway yesterday, with Japan dominating the opening exchanges. This meet has a profound impact on British swimming, as it may affect funding for many of our top swimmers. Funding will not be confirmed until the year’s world long course rankings are finalised and this meet represents the last major international long course competition of 2002. A string of high quality performances from the Japanese or Chinese teams for example, could see British swimmers pushed out of the world’s top 16 and down the priority list for lottery funding.

Asian Games day 1 report. You can follow the developments at swimnews