Marchand, McKeown, Smith & Douglass Headline “Tremendous 12” Confirmed For World Cup Series | SwimSwam

By James Sutherland on SwimSwam

2024 WORLD AQUATICS SWIMMING WORLD CUP

• Three-stop series – October 18-November 2
  • Shanghai, China – October 18-20
  • Incheon, South Korea – October 24-26
  • Singapore – October 31-November 2
• SCM (25 meters)
• World Cup Central

The stars are coming out in full force for the 2024 World Cup series, with six reigning Olympic champions among the swimmers committing to all three stops of the circuit.

World Aquatics has announced the “Tremendous 12” athletes who will race at all three stops, including individual Paris Olympic gold medalists Leon Marchand, Kaylee McKeown, Kate Douglass, Pan Zhanle, Nicolo Martinenghi and Thomas Ceccon.

Also announced to be racing the full series are 2024 Olympic medalists Regan Smith, Siobhan Haughey and Zhang Yufei, along with triple 2023 world champion Qin Haiyang, two-time Olympic medalist Arno Kamminga and four-time Olympic medalist Chad Le Clos.

Swimmers Committed To Full Series

• Thomas Ceccon (ITA)
• Chad Le Clos (RSA)
• Qin Haiyang (CHN)
• Leon Marchand (FRA)
• Nicolo Martinenghi (ITA)
• Arno Kamminga (NED)
• Pan Zhanle (CHN)
• Kate Douglass (USA)
• Siobhan Haughey (HKG)
• Kaylee McKeown (AUS)
• Regan Smith (USA)
• Zhang Yufei (CHN)

This group of dozen swimmers promises us some exciting races throughout the series, headlined by McKeown and Smith going head-to-head in the women’s backstroke events.

We could also see Smith versus Zhang in women’s fly, McKeown versus Douglass in the 200 IM, and on the men’s side, Marchand and Qin should lock horns in the 200 breast, with Martinenghi and Kamminga adding some extra spice alongside Qin in the 100 breast.

The series, which will be contested in short course meters, kicks off Oct. 18-20 in Shanghai, China, and will have subsequent stops in Incheon, South Korea (Oct. 24-26) and Singapore (Oct. 31-Nov.2). Each meet will be three days with prelims and finals.

There has also been a large group of Singaporean swimmers confirmed to be racing at the final stop on home soil, with a small group including Teong Tzen Wei locked in for all three legs. Amanda Lim, who like Teong, is a SEA Games gold medalist, highlights the local women’s field confirmed for Singapore.

Teong, 26, missed out on qualifying for the 2024 Olympics after dealing with an elbow injury, but is gearing up for a big 2025 with the World Cup kickings things off.

“The preparation for the World Cup has been good, especially after not being able to swim the qualifying trials for the Olympics. The (recovery) process was pretty hard, I had some dark days but what kept me motivated was that I didn’t want to end my career on a low so I’m just training to get better.

“I just want to go out there and get some racing done and do some proper swimming rather than just training and recovering all year round. I feel really excited to race against the best swimmers in the world because I’ll get to see where I place. I’m looking forward to racing in front of the home crowd because it’s something we rarely get to do and I hope to put on a show for my fellow Singaporeans.”

The full list of athletes competing at the Incheon and Singapore stops has not yet been released by World Aquatics. You can find the breakdown of the Shanghai entries here.

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