The event hopes to see 300 participants this year.
Registrations have opened for the Dhiraagu Malé Open swimming competition organised by Swim Maldives in collaboration with Dhiraagu.
The announcement was made today at a press conference held at Dhiraagu's head office, where Swim Maldives' President Hussain Shameem detailed that the competition aims to encourage people to learn swimming and start exercising.
"There have been a lot of tragedies and loss of life because children and adults don't know how to swim. 99 per cent of [this country] is the sea, so we need to learn how to swim to avoid a tragedy. This competition will hopefully encourage people to learn to swim," he said.
At the event, Dhiraagu's Brand and Marketing Communications Manager Mirshan Hassan said that Dhiraagu encourages and prioritises such sports. He said their goal for this year is to see more than 300 swimmers at the competition.
The competition will take place at Malé's Rasfannu area on 24 May from 06:00 onwards. Shameem said there would be no other swimming competitions or activities on the day to give all the swimmers a chance to participate in the opens. He also said that the event is the only open water swimming tournament endorsed by the Sports Commissioner, to be held in Maldives this year.
He went on to say that their goal is to eventually develop swimmers who would be able to compete in the Olympic open water swimming competition in the future.
The competition's age categories include under 10, ages 10-12, ages 13-14, ages 14-19, ages 20-29, ages 30-39, ages 40-49 and ages above 50. Those below the age of 10 would only be allowed in the 250m race while other age categories would be allowed to swim in the 250 and one kilometre race.
The top three overall swimmers and the top three swimmers from each age group would be awarded medals at the end of the competition.
The Malé Open Swimming Championship was first held in 2019 with more than 200 swimmers.
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