The Egypt Aquatics Festival – a new multi-aquatics event bringing together the Artistic Swimming World Cup, Open Water Swimming World Cup, and beach water polo qualification tournament for the ANOC World Beach Games Bali 2023 - is coming to the Egyptian beach resort of Hurghada this May.

Following the success of the inaugural Aquatics Festival that ran in parallel with the World Swimming Championships – Abu Dhabi 2021, World Aquatics is excited to announce the addition of the Egypt Aquatics Festival to the 2023 international aquatics season.  

Set to take place in Hurghada along Egypt’s Red Sea coast, the world’s top artistic swimmers, open water swimmers and beach water polo teams will compete in the beautiful Soma Bay from 8-15 May 2023.

The Egypt Aquatics Festival will get underway with the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup on 8-9 May as the open water swimming elite compete in the men’s and women’s 10km and 4x1500m relay events.

With beach water polo making its debut at the ANOC World Beach Games Bali 2023 later this year, the Egypt Aquatics Festival includes a final tournament for men’s and women’s national teams to qualify for the multi-sport event.

The World Aquatics World Beach Games Qualifier will see the final three men’s and women’s teams compete in Hurghada on 13-15 May to try and qualify for Bali 2023 on 5-12 August 2023.

So far, medallists from the men’s and women’s water polo tournaments at the World Aquatics Championships - Budapest 2022, and the winners of five continental beach water polo championships, alongside the host country Indonesia, have qualified their countries to the twelve-team beach water polo tournament at the Bali 2023.

For open water swimming at the ANOC World Beach Games, the men’s and women’s 5km races from the Budapest 2022 world championships were the selection events.  

Completing the elite competitions at the Egypt Aquatics Festival will be the third stop of the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup which will run alongside the beach water polo tournament on 13-15 May.

Originally scheduled for Cairo, Egypt from 28-30 April, the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup moved to Hurghada to capitalise on bringing together a bigger collection of world-class aquatics athletes for the benefit of the competition, teams and fans alike.

World Aquatics President Husain Al-Musallam said Egyptian organisers share his vision of bringing the aquatics community together more regularly to experience these exciting multi-sport festivals.

Today is another exciting announcement for World Aquatics and our athletes. I am delighted to have the world’s best artistic swimmers, open water competitors and water polo players coming together here to compete in an important event before the upcoming World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan,” said World Aquatics President Al-Musallam. "I would like to thank the Egyptian Swimming Federation and the city of Hurghada for their support in making this event a reality. We are deeply grateful to all our hosts and know that aquatics athletes feel the same way.”

Egyptian Swimming Federation President Yasser Idris said holding international sports events inspires the country’s up-and-coming athletes and is a significant opportunity to promote the region.

"We couldn’t be more excited to share the best of Egypt’s heritage with world-class aquatics athletes in May. By having these events, more Egyptians see top athletes performing at their best, encouraging young people to become the next aquatics stars of their generation.

Asian Legs of the Open Water Swimming World Cup Postponed to 2024

The two Asian World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cups have been postponed to the 2024 competition season. Nantou (TPE) had originally planned to host an event from 28-29 October, with the event in Hong Kong (HKG) originally slated to take place from 4-5 November. 

World Aquatics is currently reviewing the October and November period of the Open Water Swimming World Cup 2023 calendar for hosts to replace the two postponed tour stops.

World Aquatics continues to consult athletes and stakeholders. More information on the open water swimming calendar will follow as soon as possible.