Citi World Series: All eyes on home favourite Yip as Singapore hosts fifth meet

The Citi Para Swimming World Series 2024 reaches its halfway mark as the fifth meet of the year takes place in Singapore, for the third time, from Friday to Sunday (17-19 May).

This is the third time that the south-east Asian nation hosts the competition with a record number of medals to be vied. As many as 126 athletes from 21 nations will be in action in dozens of multi-class events at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

In addition, this edition will include Singapore’s first youth finals, allowing competitors aged 18 and under to vie for additional medals, thereby promoting the development of young Para swimmers.

Focus on Paris 2024

The hosts will be represented by 13 athletes led by their five-time Paralympic champion Pin Xiu Yip (S2) who wants to use this opportunity of competing at home to clock qualifying times for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

“I’m so excited. We’re going to try our best to be in Paris and do our best there. I’m really excited to be competing in the World Series in Singapore. We did it last year as well, and the atmosphere was very good and exciting with the home crowd cheering,” said the local star.

Less than a month after her stunning performance at the Madeira 2024 Para Swimming European Open Championships, where she grabbed two gold medals, Yip will dive into the OCBC Aquatic Centre’s pool to race in the same events, the women’s 50m and 100m backstroke in addition to the 100m freestyle.

International stars

Alongside her, other Paralympic champions will grab the spotlight during the weekend with the list including Japan’s Keiichi Kimura and Spain’s Teresa Perales.

Kimura (S11), who won his first-ever Paralympic gold in Tokyo three years ago, is getting prepared to fight for more golds in Paris and can be seen in action in two events this weekend, the men’s 50m freestyle and his main race – the 100m butterfly. 

On the other hand, Perales (S3) appears as one of the most experienced active swimmers and is on her way to her seventh Games. The Spanish athlete has seven gold Paralympic medals to her name and it’s still not enough. Perales will race in the women’s 50m and 200m freestyle and 50m breaststroke.

The Citi Para Swimming World Series Singapore 2024 will be live streamed via MeWatch  and the live results can be found here.

Swim Together’s debut

The Citi Para Swimming World Series Singapore 2024 also marks the global launch of the "Swim Together" workshop, a coaching programme introduced by World Para Swimming aimed at enhancing the skills of Para swimming coaches around the world.

Five Singaporean instructors have been trained as the first to deliver this curriculum and about 15 local swim coaches are participating in this first workshop.

Head of World Para Swimming, Craig Nicholson, said: “World Para Swimming is really pleased to host the first ‘Swim Together’ training in Singapore. There is a real focus to develop the sport in Singapore at all levels from grassroots to performance, so there’s no better place to launch the programme.”

“I hope the training will provide the participants with the skills and information to be able to take the Swim Together programme into their day-to-day swimming teaching and coaching, helping them to inspire others and make Para swimming more accessible in Singapore.”

Executive Director of Singapore Disability Sports Council, Kelly Fan, said: “Over the past 50 years, we have developed a successful model for Para swimming performance in Singapore, but we cannot become complacent if we want more individuals with disabilities to achieve excellence like Pin Xiu. Performance strategies alone are not enough; our success roadmap is continuously updated and spans the entire journey from learn-to-swim programs to high performance.”