Temporary venue for Singapore WAC 2025

Article posted by Coliseum, July 18^th, 2024

Image: World Aquatics Championships Singapore 2025

Singapore will build a temporary venue to hold swimming and artistic swimming events when it hosts the World Aquatics Championships in 2025.

The Straits Times said organisers revealed that the sheltered venue will be built at Carpark G, near the Kallang Tennis and Kallang Football Hub and hold an estimated 4,800 seats.

It will comprise two pools and spectator stands, as well as a fan zone with interactive activities, merchandise areas, sponsors’ booths, and food and beverage stalls.

The water polo and diving events will be at the OCBC Aquatic Centre while Sentosa will host open-water swimming (Palawan Beach) and high diving (Palawan Green). The OCBC Aquatic Centre features two 50m pools and a diving facility.

The FINA World Championships or World Aquatics Championships are the World Championships for aquatics sports: Swimming, diving, high diving, open water swimming, artistic swimming, and water polo. They are run by World Aquatics, and all swimming events are contested in a long course (50-meter) pool.

The biennial championships will see over 2,500 of the world’s best aquatic athletes compete. Singapore will also host the World Para Swimming Championships in September 2025.

The Straits Times further stated that when it was first announced in February 2023 that Singapore would be the first South-east Asian country to stage the World Aquatics Championships, the 50,000-seater National Stadium was mooted as the venue for swimming.

However, in January, it was reported that swimming and artistic swimming could instead be held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, which seats 12,000.

Alan Goh, 2025 World Aquatics Championships organising committee co-chairperson and chief executive officer of Sport Singapore, said the temporary facility will be built by next June and could first host the National School Games.

Goh said: “There are many factors we took into consideration when selecting the venue. Of course, National Stadium and Indoor Stadium were (involved in discussions) as well.

“But when we had discussions with World Aquatics, it was clear that the National Stadium with its 50,000 capacity is way over the typical attendance for the event.

“So, on balance, and having considered factors such as cost, factors such as downtime of the Indoor Stadium and National Stadium, the decision was best to hold the events in the Aquatic Centre and build a very nice facility in Carpark G.”

Recent world championships have been held in existing venues – at Doha 2024, swimming and artistic swimming were hosted in a temporary pool constructed inside the 15,500-capacity Aspire Dome.

In Fukuoka 2023, swimming was held at the 15,000-seater Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall A, part of the Fukuoka Convention Centre.

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