The World Aquatics has announced a three-stop Swimming World Cup Series for 2024, which will be held in southeast Asia. This decision comes after the successful completion of a 2023 series in Europe and a 2022 series with stops in North America and Europe. The three meets will take place in Shanghai, China from October 18-20, Incheon, South Korea from October 24-26, and Singapore from October 31 to November 2.
The compact three-meet series seems to be a response to an increasingly crowded international swimming calendar. The series has seen a decrease in the number of stops since its peak of 12 around the turn of the century. With this post-Olympic series, it is also returning to its traditional short course meters format in preparation for the upcoming 2024 World Short Course Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Incheon is a new city on the World Cup Series calendar, while Shanghai and Singapore have hosted previous events. China’s Qin Haiyang and Australia’s Kaylee McKeown won the men’s and women’s series respectively during the previous year’s competition.
It is noteworthy that China sent most of its elite swimmers to the 2023 World Cup Series right after the Asian Games, which could have been an indication of their plans for hosting all three meets in Southeast Asia for the next year’s competition.
