Spectators Few and Far Between at Short Course World Championships

Despite some of the world’s fastest swimmers competing this weekend in Abu Dhabi, many of the locals don’t seem to have taken a significant interest in the 2021 Short Course World Championships. Taking place in a temporary pool constructed in the 18,000 seat Etihad Arena, the stage was set for large crowds, though the spectators haven’t shown. SwimSwam’s Coleman Hodges, who is on the ground in Abu Dhabi, has estimated no more than a few hundred spectators seem to be in attendance for any of the sessions so far. 

The obvious culprit is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the world now for almost two years and has been handled very differently by nations across the globe. To date, The United Arab Emirates is the most vaccinated country in the world, with over 92% of their population being fully vaccinated, according to the New York Times. The country also has one of the lowest COVID-19 transmission rates in the world, with less than 1 case per 100,000 people, also according to the New York Times. Despite those world-leading statistics, cases have been creeping up in the U.A.E. The current 14-day new case average sits at 135 cases for the country, over double the new case count from two weeks ago. 

COVID-19’s impact on attendance, however, seems less likely as a monolithic driver when digging a little deeper on both the nation’s policies and recent large-scale sporting events. Over the summer, The U.A.E instituted a nation-wide policy that all spectators for live events, including sports, be fully vaccinated and present a negative PCR test result within 48 hours of the event. This includes the SC Worlds, as well as last week’s Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi, which appeared to have full stands of thousands of spectators on race highlights. 

A more interesting theory arises when comparing these championships to the 2019 Track and Field World Championships in Qatar, the U.A.E’s neighboring country. Two years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance was sparse in Doha and made international news for providing a significantly different environment than the 2017 championships, which were held in London.

In recent years, international sporting bodies have made a larger effort to host large-scale international events in these Arabian Peninsula countries, flush with oil money, state of the art venues and international tourist destinations. The most notable of these events is the next FIFA World Cup, set to kick off in Qatar in November 2022.

Despite the investments in these state of the art venues and events, thus far locals have seemed to steer clear of sporting events that do not have a strong foothold in countries like Qatar and the U.A.E. despite the international implications. While the World Cup has historically been the largest international sporting event in the world and figures to buck the trend set by both track and field and aquatics, it remains to be seen whether local Qataris will flock to the stadiums in droves as has been tradition for decades of World Cups.