Dubai: World class international swimming returns to Dubai on Friday with the start of the Fina/Airweave Swimming World Cup, and organisers are delighted with both the calibre and number of entrants.
This is the fifth time Dubai has hosted a leg of the prestigious series, and the first time it has had the honour of hosting the final and deciding round.
A record 800 swimmers from 56 countries will hit the pool on Friday for the first day of competition at the Hamdan Sports Complex, and among them are the holders of 49 medals (20 of them gold) from the recent Fina World Championships.
The entry list features some of the biggest names in swimming from across the world. The overall point score leaders, and soon to be Swimming World Cup champions for 2015, Katinka Hosszu of Hungary and Cameron van der Burgh of South Africa head the list, which also includes crowd favourite and world champion Chad le Clos of South Africa, and multiple gold medallists from the 2015 World Championships, including super backstrokers Emily Seebohm and Mitch Larkin of Australia.
A pre-event conference was held at GEMS Wellington Academy in Silicon Oasis on Thursday.
Ryan Arblaster, Fina technical swimming committee member, said: “Dubai has a great history of hosting swimming championships in the world class facilities here.
“I’d like to thank our title sponsor Airweave, and the series sponsor Speedo. I’d like to encourage everyone to attend the event, we have the best in the world here so it’s going to be fantastic, I hope you all enjoy it.”
In a departure to the usual press conference format students at the school aged seven to 17 were invited to ask the questions.
Nick Latham, Swim Coach at the GEMS Wellington Academy, said: “This was a fantastic experience for the students, the swimmers are so friendly and great with the kids, I’m sure all the children here today will be talking about this for a long time.”
The action starts on Friday with the heats at 9.30am. In the afternoon a Children’s Swimming Gala will be held for local swimmers, before the finals at 6pm. The schedule is repeated on Saturday. Tickets are Dh50 per day and are available at the door, entry for children under 12 is free.
The 2015 Swimming World Cup is being held over eight legs, and three clusters, with men and women vying for prize money and points in each leg and cluster. The overall male and female points winners will also take home US$100,000. The Swimming World Cup this year is being held in a 50-metre pool for the first time, as the event doubles up as Olympic qualification.
For more information see the Facebook page: FINA/airweave Swimming World Cup- Dubai UAE.