FINA World Championships

Athletes from 181 nations faced off under a grey Shanghai sky at this year’s FINA World Swimming Championships. Photographer Jonathan Browning traveled to China's most populated city to document the midway point of the two-week competition, which lured the likes of Tom Daley and Michael Phelps to the newly unveiled Oriental Sports Center, a futuristic feat of engineering set on the Huangpu River and designed by architects Von Gerkan, Marg and Partners. Divided into five events spanning synchronized swimming, water polo, diving, swimming and an open water race, the competition is the first major qualifier in the run-up to the 2012 games, and was fittingly imbued with a global atmosphere. “It was amazing to witness the unadulterated enthusiasm of the Spanish team cheering their divers with their horns next to the poised formality of the team from China,” Browning says. “It was an incredible juxtaposition: the cultural interplay of the observers on the sidelines and the athleticism on view.”