The World Aquatics has recently announced a three-stop Swimming World Cup Series for 2024, to be held in southeast Asia. Following the 2023 series that took place in Europe and the 2022 series with stops in North America and Europe, this compact three-meet series seems to be a response to an increasingly crowded international swimming calendar. Since its peak of 12 around the turn of the century, the number of stops in the series has decreased.
The decision to have all three meets of the series in southeast Asia for 2024 could be seen as a foreshadowing of China’s move to send most of its elite swimmers to the 2023 World Cup Series right after the Asian Games. This return to traditional short course meters format is also in preparation for the 2024 World Short Course Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Incheon, host of the 2014 Asian Games, is a new city in the World Cup Series, while Shanghai and Singapore have hosted previous events.
In 2023, China’s Qin Haiyang won the men’s series and Australia’s Kaylee McKeown won the women’s series. It remains to be seen which elite swimmers will participate in this upcoming event, but it is sure to attract some of the world’s best athletes.