Featured image credit: World Aquatics
Singapore has been awarded hosting rights for the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, with the Singapore Sports Hub complex to be among the competition venues.
The event will bring together the six aquatic sports of swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming, open-water swimming and high diving. Specific dates for Singapore’s World Championships have not yet been confirmed.
The event will be staged in cooperation between World Aquatics (formerly FINA), the Singapore Swimming Association and Sport Singapore. Over 2,500 athletes representing 209 member federations are expected to take part in the event.
The Singapore Sports Hub includes the National Stadium, Singapore Indoor Stadium and the OCBC Aquatic Centre, with the latter featuring two 50m pools and a diving facility.
Singapore has previously hosted World Cups in five of the six aquatics sports, as well as the 2015 World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships, but it has never hosted the World Aquatics Championships. It will become the first Southeast Asian city to do so.
The 2025 event had originally been due to take place in the Russian city of Kazan. World Aquatics has opted to relocate the event following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The relocation comes as a boost for Singapore, which last year missed out on hosting rights for the World Athletics Championships. Tokyo was selected to host the event ahead of bids from Singapore, Nairobi (Kenya) and Silesia (Poland).
World Aquatics president Husain Al-Musallam said: “Singapore has everything we hope to share with our athletes: world-class facilities, proven experience of hosting events of the highest quality and a comprehensive approach to aquatic sports that runs from elite level to the community.
“With a back-to-back-to-back trio of World Aquatics Championships in Asia – following Fukuoka this year and Doha in 2024 – the continent is demonstrating exceptional commitment and ability when it comes to welcoming the world’s best aquatic athletes.”
Singapore Swimming Association president Mark Chay added: “As you might expect from an island nation, Singapore has a proud tradition of aquatic sports. Our whole community is excited about the opportunities that will come from bringing the world’s best aquatics athletes to Singapore: from the teams that have represented us with honour at the Olympic Games and the World Aquatics Championships to the young people training in our clubs.”
Kazan also lost hosting rights to last year’s World Swimming Championships (25m), with the event taking place in Melbourne, Australia.
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