World Aquatics plans largest stadium in history for world championships in Doha

One week after the start of the World Championships, much of the attention and conversation is about who’s who. I don’t World Aquatics plans to break records for both the number of countries and number of athletes participating in the upcoming Doha World Championships.

World Swimming released a media guide this week listing the number of countries and athletes participating in each edition of the World Championships.

Although many top swimmers do not participate in this event, it is an Olympic qualifying event for four of the other five events being held.

• Water polo – 6 spots for men, 3 spots for women (including countries that qualify just by participating)
• Open Water – 18 spots for men, 18 spots for women
• Diving – 4 domestic slots per synchronized event, 12 domestic slots per individual event
• Artistic Swimming – 5 open team spots, 3 women’s duet spots

It remains to be seen whether the numbers announced in the 2024 Media Guide will become reality or just marketing wishful thinking, but the guide provides a historical look at participation levels at various World Championships. has been done.

The first tournament in 1973 had 696 athletes from 47 countries participating. The 1986 Madrid Games got off to an inauspicious start, with fewer players and fewer participating countries.

However, after a hiatus, it really picked up steam in 1991, when the number of athletes at the Games topped 1,000 for the first time. His 1,119 athletes from 84 participating countries competed in Perth, Australia in 1991, marking a turning point for the competition. The event was held again in his 1998 year as it was a huge success.

Spain took a turn for the better in 2003 when Barcelona hosted the first tournament with more than 2,000 players.

The record for the most participants was at the 2009 World Championships, when the record for most participants was broken during the heyday of polyurethane suits. Since then, the situation has calmed down for several tournaments, but in the last few world championships (excluding the 2022 tournament due to the coronavirus pandemic), the number of participants in the tournament has been around 2,300 to 2,400. It was changing.

World Aquatics currently has 209 member federations (not all of which are sovereign countries, such as Puerto Rico and the Faroe Islands), of which 197 are expected to participate in Doha. The participation rate was 94.2%. As a comparison, last year’s World Athletics Championships had his 202 participants from 214 member federations, a nearly identical 94.4% participation rate for a series of sports generally considered to be much more approachable.

World swimming championships participation history