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The final stop of the 2024 World Aquatics Open Water World Cup is moving to Neom, Saudi Arabia, as part of the 3rd annual Neom Beach Games. The races will be hosted from November 22-23.
The stop was previously set to be hosted in Eilat, Israel, but with no sign to the end of the war between Israel and Hamas and escalating fighting with Hezbollah to the north, World Aquatics decided to move the event.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was back in the Middle East this week attempting to negotiate a ceasefire, but left without one.
In addition to direct threats of fighting in Eilat in the far south of Israel, which as recently as this week heard drone warning signals, travel has become difficult again due to the escalations with Hezbollah. Wizz Air, British Airways, and Azerbaijan Airlines all announced on Tuesday that they were halting flights to Israel, joining other major airlines like Lufthansa.
Instead, the race will move further south on the Red Sea, about 100 miles (175km) as the crow flies. While Israel and Saudi Arabia do not currently share a border, they are separated by just a sliver of land that is the port of Aqaba in Jordan, obtained in a 1965 land swap with Saudi Arabia.
Neom is a very young city, having been established only 6 years ago as a master planned ‘city of the future’. Future plans include a floating industrial complex, resorts, and a city powered by renewable energy sources at a planned cost of over $1.5 trillion. Work on the city has included an estimated forcible relocation of around 20,000 members of the Howeitat tribe, with the United Nations saying that at least one man was killed in the process.
Along with the building of the new city comes the old playbook of attracting international sporting events to enhance the city’s global reputation.
While Neom is closer to the equator than Eilat, other factors mean that Neom is typically a few degrees cooler in November with average highs in the mid-70s. Water temperatures in the Red Sea have typically fallen to 69-73 degrees Fahrenheit (21-23 C) by late November, well within World Aquatics’ safe temperature range of 16-31 degrees Celsius.
This is the second straight year where World Aquatics has been forced to move the final stop of the series from Eilat. Last year, the meet was moved to Funchal, Portugal.
