Members of the global aquatics community are eager to kickstart the firstever World Aquatics Championships to be held in Southeast Asia at today’s opening press conference in Singapore. The press conference at PARKROYAL on Beach Road was attended by World Aquatics President Husain Al Musallam, World Aquatics Executive Director Brent Nowicki, Local Organising Committee Co-Chairs Alan Goh and Mark Chay, as well as six athletes who are competing in Singapore 2025. The athletes were Water Polo players Marko Bijac from Croatia and Eleftheria Plevritou of Greece, as well as Team Singapore athletes Gan Ching Hwee, Mikkel Lee (both Swimming), Debbie Soh (Artistic Swimming) and Ritchie Oh (Open Water Swimming).

World Aquatics President Husain Al Musallam is excited for the competition to begin. He said: “On behalf of World Aquatics, I would like to thank Singapore. Organising the World Aquatics Championships is not easy; we have six different sports and a high number of athletes competing at one of the highest levels. There are also the World Aquatics Masters Championships – we have 7,700 masters athletes and around 2,500 elite athletes. That’s about 10,000 athletes in total and this is fantastic news for everyone in aquatic sports. Singapore is the first country in Southeast Asia hosting the World Aquatics Championships, and with a fantastic facility. This is a continuation of the legacy of the Youth Olympic Games in 2010. This is a chance for our sport to leave a positive impact on society and after Singapore 2025, I hope that swimming will reach more communities in Southeast Asia.”

The World Aquatics Championships also coincides with Singapore’s celebrations of 60 years of independence during 2025, and Local Organising Committee Co-Chair and Sport Singapore CEO Alan Goh is looking forward to the festivities.

He said: “After more than 18 months of preparation, we are pleased to welcome the global aquatics fraternity to Singapore. 2025 is a special year for Singapore. As we proudly host the world’s most prestigious aquatics competition, we also celebrate our nation’s 60th year of independence, so we’re very excited to have these Championships help be the crescendo as we lead to our 60th birthday celebration on 9 Aug. We look forward to watching live here in Singapore new records hopefully, many more personal bests and national records being broken in the pools of the Singapore Sports Hub and the waters of Sentosa. Beyond competition, our organising team has also taken efforts to create a vibrant fan zone to provide engaging experiences for all spectators, locally and from overseas. We hope that many meaningful connections will be made with the shared sporting experiences right here in Singapore. To the World Aquatics team led by President Husain and Brent, thank you for this close collaboration. We are truly happy to have this partnership and we are proud to be the first Southeast Asian country to host this prestigious event. We hope to have this add to our legacy of hosting key world class sporting events here in Singapore.”

World Aquatics Executive Director Brent Nowicki highlighted expectations for another outstanding World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. He added: “This is probably the biggest birthday party that we’ve ever been invited to. Congratulations to Singapore and on your 60th anniversary, we’re pleased to share that with you. From a sporting perspective, coming out of Budapest was something special with the number of world records that we saw in the swimming pool. If you combine that with the 29 medallist countries we saw in Doha at the last World Championships, you’ll see this progression to the great evolution of development and change, and emerging athletes, starts and countries. I think we’ll continue to see that here in Singapore.”

Competition begins tomorrow with Water Polo at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, which will also host diving later during the World Aquatics Championships. Local Organising Committee Co-Chair Mark Chay, also a two-time Olympian, said: “Being able to give this platform to our national athletes and athletes from around the world, the opportunity to be inspired, to be amongst their peers and to perform at their best – it’s truly amazing to host this event in Singapore. It’s also a testament of our ability to host world-class events and have world-class athletes come and inspire future generations and witness all these great performances such that they don’t think that these world-class performances are too far out of their reach. That was what I held truly dearly to myself when I was a national athlete, I was able to see the best athletes in action and that really inspired me. These World Championships will give Singapore athletes the opportunity to swim and perform in front of their home crowd. It really means a lot to be able to have their family and friends cheer them behind the blocks and we’re fortunate to have a team of 72 athletes from Singapore, 32 of which are debutants. To the athletes here, do your best, use this opportunity to gain valuable experiences. Most importantly, have fun, make friends and we’ll all be cheering for you.”

Eleftheria Plevritou, captain of Greece’s Women’s Water Polo National Team that recently won the Women’s Water Polo World Cup, said: “It’s really important we won the gold medal in the World Cup because it gave us confidence. It’s important to us because we might not be the team that’s favoured on paper, so this will give us strength and confidence to continue and come to this tournament with more strength and power. The aim here is to be first in the group and reaching the quarter-finals will be the second aim. We need to prove to ourselves that we are a team that belongs among the top teams in the world and we want to achieve the best place we can in these World Championships.”

On his country’s dominance in Water Polo, Croatia captain Marko Bijac said: “Since we were kids, we’ve watched our national team playing at a high level, and we’re training to be in their place one day. We are proud that today, we are able to represent our country and achieve such big results. Of course we are aware that here in Singapore, it will be difficult to reach the quarter-finals and then the semi-finals and win medals. But we will go game after game the best we can and we are happy that during this preparation period, we were able to avoid injuries and we are ready for the start of the competition.”

Swimming and Artistic Swimming events during Singapore 2025 will be held at the World Aquatics Championships Arena, a 4,800-seater purpose-built facility. Sentosa (Palawan Green) completes the world-class trio of venues being used for the World Aquatics Championships by hosting Open Water Swimming and High Diving

Competing in her ninth World Aquatics Championships, national artistic swimmer Debbie Soh said: “Competing in any world championships has always been such a huge honour and huge privilege, but especially because we’re celebrating SG60 this year, it makes it even more meaningful and even more special. It’s a celebration of how far we’ve come as a little red dot being able to host the most prestigious World Aquatics event. I’ve been training here since I was eight, so this feels like a full circle moment where I get to perform in front of my friends, my family and even more local fans. It’s a rare chance for me to give back to the people who helped shape me in my artistic swimming journey and in my sporting career. I hope I’ll be able to showcase the beauty of the sport and inspire the next generation of local artistic swimmers. This is a really niche sport that not many Singaporeans may know about, so I’m really hoping that by using the most prestigious platform, we’re able to help introduce the sport to more people. This is a moment that’s really filled with a lot of pride and joy for myself. I hope to perform the best that I can at home during such a historic year for the country, and I trust that our fellow local athletes will also show everyone what Singapore can do.”

Paris 2024 Olympian Gan Ching Hwee hopes the Championships will inspire the next generation of athletes. She said: “When we talk about young and upcoming swimmers, it’s always very exciting because after all, they’re the future of sport. The message I have for them is to chase your dreams, always believe in yourself and never give up when faced with challenges.”

Teammate Mikkel Lee, who came close to breaking the 50m freestyle national record in April, added: “Every time I step on the blocks, I want to do my best, be it a personal best time or executing the race well. If a national record happens, that’s a bonus to me. I’m not particularly aiming for that, it’s me against the clock and me against my best times.”

Open water swimmer Ritchie Oh, who will be making his third World Aquatics Championships appearance, said: “The most challenging part when we’re competing over different countries for my sport is adapting to the different temperatures of the water. We’ve just been doing what every open water athlete would do. We’ve been practising different race simulations and hydration tactics so we can be ready for whatever is to come on race day next week. To do well for my event, you just have to stay calm and competitive at the same time. You have to be ready to adapt and you have to be confident with all the long hours and hard work that you’ve put in over the past few months.”

At the World Aquatics Championships 2025, around 2,500 athletes are expected to be competing in a record 77 medal events across six aquatic sports – swimming, artistic swimming, water polo, diving, high diving and open water swimming. Singapore 2025 will also feature a record prize money pool of more than US$6 million, in addition to a US$30,000 World Record Bonus in Swimming. This comes off the back of World Aquatics paying out US$11.1 million to aquatics athletes in 2024, the most in the organisation’s 117-year history.

Photo Credit: Singapore 2025

The World Aquatics Championships – Singapore 2025 runs from 11th July to 22nd August 2025. More information available here

The full schedule for the World Aquatics Championships – Singapore 2025 can be found here. Details on ticketing can be found here, and information on the extensive global coverage of the event can be found here.