WCH Arena ready to rock and roll as times tumble at age group meet

SINGAPORE – The brand new World Aquatics Championships (WCH) Arena is certainly living up to its “fast” tag with more than 180 personal bests set during the June 25-27 swimming competition of the South-east Asia Age Group Aquatics Championships.

The June 20-22 artistic swimming competition and the swim meet were the first events to be held at the temporary arena built in a carpark at the SportsHub and served as test events for the July 11-Aug 3 world championships in Singapore.

The water polo (June 19-22) and diving (June 27-29) events of the South-East Asia meet were held at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

Many of the participants were full of praise for the 4,800-seater new arena, which features Olympic-sized competition and training pools and the same red OSB11 starting blocks used at Paris 2024.

Measuring 50m by 26m with a depth of three metres, the pools are notably wider and deeper than the Paris Olympics’ temporary pool at the La Defense Arena, which was also built by Italian contractor Myrtha Pools but was one metre narrower and 2.15m deep.

At the Paris Games, there were four world records and 17 Olympic marks and the times are tipped to tumble in Singapore as swimmers tend to prefer a deeper pool because the increased depth reduces water turbulence, and calmer waters generally result in faster times.

Singaporean swimmer Russel Pang, 15, gave the facilities the thumbs up.

He said: “The starting blocks are really good because they are sturdy and sanded down. Also, the distance between the training pool and competition pool is very near and the whole place is air-conditioned, which is really nice.”

Fellow swimmer Reagen Cheng, 17, added: “It’s one of the top three pools I have swum in. Excellent. The arena seats quite a lot of people, the