Find your inspiration at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore

SINGAPORE – Singaporean swimmer Gan Ching Hwee still remembers the time she shared the pool with long-distance legend Katie Ledecky, winner of nine Olympic golds and 21 world championship titles.

It was in 2022 at the Swimming World Cup in Indianapolis, where they both competed in the women’s 800m freestyle final and the American set a new short-course world record of 7min 57.42sec. Then 19, Gan did not fare too badly, clocking a 8:22.91 national mark.

Quoting author Napoleon Hill, she summed up that awe-inspiring encounter and Ledecky’s prowess: “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

She added: “I was in the lane closest to all the spectators and I could feel the sound travelling through the water. That gave me quite a bit of boost and a greater sense of purpose finishing that race, because I knew something special was happening from the energy from the crowd.

“At the same time, being so close in proximity to someone so great lets me see that they are also just another human being and it’s all in the mind, to believe that you can achieve what you want to accomplish.”

Motivated by that race with her idol, Gan went on to earn a spot at the 2024 Paris Olympics and set two national records in the 800m (8:32.37) and 1,500m (16:10.13).

As Gan will attest to, there is nothing like witnessing greatness up close.

And Singaporeans have had a front-row seat to some of the world’s biggest sporting events.

Among the highlights are the inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), premier golf event the HSBC Women’s World Championship (17 times), 15 Formula One races, five Women’s Tennis Association Finals and four editions of table tennis’ Singapore Smash, plus regional events like the 2015 SEA Games.

With the world’s top swimmers, divers, artistic swimmers and water polo players set to compete at the July 11-Aug 3 World Aquatics Championships (WCH) here, the event could inspire a new generation of Singaporean athletes.

Chinese divers like eight-gold world champion Wang Zongyuan are set to wow spectators with their somersaults, tucks and turns at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, while artistic swimmers such as mixed duet technical routine defending champions Nargiza Bolatova and Eduard Kim, history-makers from landlocked Kazakhstan, will entertain and enthral in the WCH Arena pool with their balletic elegance.

World swimming records are set to fall in the WCH Arena, with Ledecky and four-gold Olympic champion Leon Marchand of France aiming to create a splash in Singapore. In water polo, expect thrills and spills as the likes of powerhouses Serbia, Croatia and Spain battle for dominance.

Over on Sentosa, Brazil’s heavily-tattooed, 16-time open water world championship medallist Ana Marcela Cunha will show fans what resilience across 10km looks like, while Australian high diver Rhiannan Iffland – unbeaten at the world championships since her debut in 2017 – will conduct a clinic on courage by leaping off a 20m platform.

Over the next three weeks, there will be no shortage of star power as around 2,500 athletes from more than 200 countries and territories congregate in the Lion City to compete across the six aquatic disciplines.

Beyond the stars, others will inspire with their tales of overcoming the odds.

Artistic swimmer and World Cup medallist Kyra Hoevertsz hails from tiny Aruba, which measures just a quarter of Singapore’s land area and has a population of only 125,000.

The 27-year-old was spurred on by her mother Esther Croes and aunt Nicole Hoevertsz, who both competed at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when the Caribbean country did not have a proper pool, and male artistic swimming trailblazer Bill May, who helped her while she was on the World Aquatics Scholarship Programme in California.

Inspiration can be found right at home, too.

Cayden Loh was just 10 when he sat in the OCBC Aquatic Centre to cheer on his coach Lee Kai Yang, who was the goalkeeper when Singapore won the water polo gold at the 2015 SEA Games.

Ten years on, Loh was part of the Singapore team who recorded a milestone win over Kazakhstan at the Asian Under-20 Water Polo Championships in March.

He said: “Watching Kai Yang play and command the team during the 2015 SEA Games lit a fire in me – it inspired me to train harder, to not just be the best in South-east Asia, but to eventually compete on the world stage.

“What started as admiration for my coach has now become the honour of playing alongside him. The grind doesn’t stop here as there’s still a lot of room for us to grow as individuals and as a team. The journey is far from over, and one day I hope to be good enough to play professionally.”

At the WCH Arena, teacher and student will now be teammates as the national men’s team make their World Aquatics Championships debut.

Lee said: “We want to do well in the present, but these major meets are also about planting a seed in the heads of the next generation of aquatic athletes in the stands, that this is within their grasp, and they can far surpass what we are able to do.”

Inspiration can also be an impetus.

The 2010 YOG was not only an introduction to future Olympic swimming champions such as South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Australia’s Emma McKeon, but it also helped to restart Singapore’s dormant diving programme.

This led to the Republic getting back on the SEA Games podium after a 30-year drought. From 1965 to 1983, Singapore claimed 18 diving medals at the regional meet, and almost doubled the tally to 32 from 2013 to 2023.

Ashlee Tan, who won a women’s 3m synchronised springboard gold with Fong Kay Yian in 2017, said: “It always felt impossible to beat the Malaysians, who have produced Olympic and world championships medallists. But now, we feel there’s a slight chance, and I managed to finish higher than one of the Malaysians at the last world championships in Doha.”

Singapore may not be a global aquatics powerhouse, but it has made huge strides in recent times.

It now has a former Olympic swimming champion in Joseph Schooling, a first Olympic open water swimmer (Chantal Liew), historic World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final bronze medallists in Debbie Soh, Yvette Chong and Kiera Lee, and a women’s water polo team who made their first world championship appearance at Doha in 2024.

It also boasts a fast pool built in just six months in a carpark, just steps away from the world-class Singapore Sports Hub that also houses the High Performance Sport Institute.

“Water Shapes Us” is the theme of the world championships, to encapsulate Singapore’s relationship with water and its significance in the hosts’ development and identity as a nation.

The hope is that the marquee aquatics event will shape Singapore’s sporting culture and leave a legacy beyond this three-week extravaganza – that Singaporeans will be inspired and motivated to learn, participate and spectate in the artistic swimming, diving, high diving, swimming, open water swimming and water polo.

Maybe 10 years from now, Singapore will see its first high diver. Or the next Joseph Schooling.