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On Monday evening, World Aquatics, the international governing body for aquatics, presented the awards for the best swimmers of the year at its future headquarters in Budapest.
The awards ceremony was preceded by a presentation of the plans for the future headquarters of World Aquatics. The center is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, but the organization plans to partially relocate to the Hungarian capital in the second half of next year. Under the agreement signed in July at the World Cup venue in Fukuoka, Japan, half of the staff will be Hungarian.
In his speech, Minister of Defense Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that Hungary has invested a lot of energy in hosting major sporting events over the past fifteen years. He highlighted
the two previous successful World Aquatics Championships, the World Athletics Championships and the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix that the country has been hosting since 1986.
In the meantime, he added, a strong infrastructure capacity has been built up in several sports, as well as expertise in sports event management. He emphasized that this must continue unabated, as it attracts people into the world of sport, the most important goal overall.
The plans for the future headquarters. Photo via MTI/Kovács Tamás
Hussein al-Musallam, President of World Aquatics, thanked the Hungarian government and the aquatics federations. He stressed that this complex will be built for the future generation.
The center, located in the 13th district, a few minutes’ walk from the Danube Arena, will not only house offices, as the eye-catching presentation film showed, but also a modern training center that will uniquely include two training pools and a 27-meter high giant diving tower. There will also be hotel rooms for World Aquatics Budapest scholarship students and trainees.
The federation hopes to host the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, the third event in the Hungarian capital.
In the men’s individual event, Chinese champion Qin Haiyang won the men’s breaststroke and Australian backstroke specialist Kaylee McKeown won the women’s event. Both athletes won all three World Cup events (50m, 100m, 200m) in Berlin, Athens, and last weekend in the Danube Arena in Budapest, with McKeown setting world records in the 50m and 100m in the Hungarian capital.
Qin Haiyang (L), Hussein al-Musallam (L2), Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky (R2), and Kaylee McKeown (R). Photo via Facebook/Szalay-Bobrovniczky Kristóf
At the event, the logo for the Short Course Swimming Championships, which will be held in Budapest next year, was unveiled, featuring the silhouette of the iconic Chain Bridge and the World Aquatics logo.
Via MTI, Featured image via Facebook/Szalay-Bobrovniczky Kristóf