World Aquatics Projects Biggest Field in World Championship History for Doha

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

While much of the focus and conversation a week out from the start of the World Championships is about who won’t be there, World Aquatics is still projecting a record field, both in number of countries and number of participating athletes, for the upcoming Doha World Championships.

World Aquatics released its media guide this week, which lists number of participating countries and athletes for each edition of the World Championships.

Many top swimmers aren’t participating in the meet, but the event is an Olympic qualification event in four of the other five disciplines on offer.

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

While it remains to be seen if the numbers released in the media guide for 2024 come to fruition or are wishful marketing thinking, the guide gives a historical look at participation levels for different World Championships.

The first event in 1973 saw 47 countries and 696 athletes participate. It was an inauspicious start for the event, with the number of participating athletes and countries decreasing for the second event in Colombia.

After a hiatus, though, momentum really took off in 1991 with the event breaking 1,000 athletes for the first time. 1,119 athletes from 84 participating nations competed in Madrid. Spain hit another watershed in 2003 when Barcelona hosted the first event with over 2,000 athletes.

The previous record for most participating athletes was the 2009 World Championships where records were broken by the bucket-full during the peak of the polyurethane suit era. Things quieted for a few editions after that, but for the last few World Championships (save the 2022 event coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic) the event has hovered around 2,300-2,400 athletes.

World Aquatics currently has 209 member federations (not all are sovereign countries, per se, such as Puerto Rico or the Faroe Islands), of which 197 are expected to participate in Doha. That’s a 94.2% participation rate. As a point of comparison, the World Athletics Championships last year had 202 participants of 214 member federations, an almost-identical 94.4% participation rate for a set of sports that are generally viewed as much more accessible.

Participation History, World Aquatics Championships

SwimSwam: World Aquatics Projects Biggest Field in World Championship History for Doha