Olympic and world champions to attend Singapore Swim Stars

Twelve Olympic champions and 21 World champions have signed up for the inaugural Singapore Swim Stars, the first major swimming event at the Singapore Sports Hub.Organisers said that more than half of the 3,000 tickets on sale have been snapped up for the Friday (Sep 5) showdown.

The first three of the more than 40 swim stars lined up for the inaugural event arrived in Singapore on Tuesday. They are multi-Olympic-gold medallists, Americans Nathan Adrian and Jessica Hardy, and Danish World Champion Jeanette Ottesen.

The organisers said the upcoming meet is "the most prestigious event outside of the Olympics and the world championships".

Over the next two days, other big names like James Magnussen, Kosuke Kitajima and Roland Schoeman are expected to arrive.

There will be no qualifying rounds for the four 100m races. Eight invited swimmers will compete in each of the final races, with only one winner crowned for each of the four races covering the freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke and backstroke disciplines.

"I do not think many events have captured how fun and how cool swimming can be, so this is definitely a step in the right direction,” said Mr Adrian. “I think condensing it into two hours and making it a little more spectator-friendly is going to be amazing."

Looking forward to the upcoming race, Ms Hardy said: "We do not have qualification heats, we do not have semi-finals. This is all or nothing and we can't make any mistakes. It is a tonne of adrenalin, we are racing with heart and not holding anything back." - CNA/ek