SINGAPORE, Feb 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – Now is the time for Asia to host major sporting events, thanks to the financial stability and willingness of society in the region, World Aquatics president, Husain Al-Musallam, told Xinhua.
The 2025 World Aquatics Championships will be held in Singapore, World Aquatics announced yesterday. This means that, the world’s premier international aquatics event will be staged in Asian countries, for three years in a row, from this year.
Japan’s Fukuoka will host the 20th World Aquatics Championships in July. This tournament was originally scheduled to be held in 2021, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 21st World Championships, originally scheduled for summer of this year, was then rescheduled to take place in Doha in Feb, 2024.
“When you want to host an event, you definitely need financial stability, the platform of the market, the willingness of society and authorities to contribute, to support within society,” Al-Musallam told Xinhua.
“Now, it’s time for Asia, because of the economy. The impact is important, as well as, the market, the support from the authorities of the Asian countries to host international events.”
Al-Musallam mentioned the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, as well as, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. “All these big events were held in Asia for the reasons I mentioned.”
But he added that, when market stability and public support for hosting sporting events comes back in other regions of the world, big events “definitely will be going there.”
At the end of last year, aquatic sports’ international governing body, also changed its name from FINA to World Aquatics.
“The reason is very simple. It’s to unify the different six disciplines within the aquatic family together, and make it become one,” said Al-Musallam.
“FINA is related to swimming only, in the French acronym, but aquatics is not only swimming, it’s about swimming, water polo, open swimming, diving, artistic swimming and high diving. We will find the whole family under one umbrella, united by water. Of course there will be positive impact for the organising committee, making life easier for them in marketing.”
In recent years, World Aquatics has increased the prize for its major events by a big margin, thanks to various sponsorships. Al-Musallam said that, while rewarding elite athletes is part of their strategy, they are actually allocating a bigger budget to the development of the sport.
“You cannot just focus on elite athletes and forget the pyramid,” he said. “Our priority is that swimming can play an important role in ensuring health of the society, and also to reduce the amount of drownings around the world. There are so many kids drowning in all parts of the world. So this is our vision, apart from taking care of elite athletes.”– NNN-XINHUA
