Katie Grimes, Claire Weinstine Set to Join the World Cup Tour for Singapore Stop | SwimSwam

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup – Singapore

• Thursday, October 31st-Satuday, November 2nd
• Singapore
• Prelims at 9:30am local (8:30pm ET previous night)/Finals at 6:30pm local (6:30am ET)
• SCM (25m)
• Meet Central
• Event Schedule
• Athletes Entered

With the second stop of the Swimming World Cup tour underway in Incheon, South Korea, organizers of the meet’s 3rd stop have unveiled athletes and entries expected for the finale in Singapore.

The Singapore stop will start to bring more tension as athletes jockey for position to earn a share of the $524,000 overall series prizes divided among the top 8 scoring swimmers of each gender, with the top male and top female each taking home $100,000.

That includes American Kate Douglass, who has stuck with the same 8 entries that she’s used throughout the series so far: the 50/100/200 breast, the 50/100 free, the 50 fly, and the 200 IM.

The entry lists, with highlights here from the host committee, remain very similar to Incheon. Notably, World Aquatics has not listed Kaylee McKeown on their official web listing, though the host committee still has her listed – she is not expected to race after leaving the first stop in Shanghai early.

The most notable change is the presence of Katie Grimes, Claire Weinstein, and Luke Ellis, young teenagers from the United States’ elite Sandpipers of Nevada training group. The trio are entered in the Open Water World Cup race in Hong Kong this weekend, and as coach Ron Aitken told SwimSwam in September, are joining the World Cup for its final stop in Singapore.

That makes them eligible to earn prize money for the stop, but not partake in the big awards available for series-long achievements.

Grimes, who represented the US in both open water and the pool at the Paris Olympics, is entered in six events: the 400/800 frees, the 100 IM, the 400 IM, the 100 back, and the 200 back. That list includes the shortest and longest IMs, but not the 200 in between. She won silver in the 400 IM at the Olympics.

Weinstein, 17, was Grimes’ Olympic teammate, winning silver on the 800 free relay in Paris. She is entered in the 100, 200, 400, and 800 freestyles in Singapore.

Ellis, the 2024 Junior Pan Pacs Champion in the 800 free, is entered in all three IM races, the 200 free, the 400 free, and the 1500 free.

While a limited new field of participants late in the series is a bit different than what we have historically seen in the World Cup, it does provide an element that World Aquatics has been chasing (and incentivizing financially) in recent years: a sustainable series where top swimmers can complete the entire series and begin to develop the season-long connections to fans that could turn the property into a bigger entertainment entity.

Read the full story on SwimSwam: Katie Grimes, Claire Weinstine Set to Join the World Cup Tour for Singapore Stop