Egyptian swimmers topped the medal table at the first World University Championship in finswimming ever held in Africa, winning seven gold medals, nine silver medals, and three bronze medals on home water.
Finswimming is a sport in which athletes race with fins, often a single monofin, either on the surface with a snorkel or underwater. The championship, held 28 to 29 October in Sharm El-Sheikh, was the first time the event had been staged in Egypt, the Arab world or Africa, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education. Backed by the International University Sports Federation, known as FISU, and the World Underwater Federation, known as CMAS, organizers expected to draw about 200 athletes from 20 countries, and said hosting it would strengthen Egyptian university sport and promote sports tourism.
Tarek Hassan Elsayed set the tone on opening day, winning the 100-meter surface race in 34.50 seconds, a competition record. He had already broken the record in the heats, swimming 35.59 seconds, before lowering it by 1.09 seconds in the final. China’s Guan Hanzhi took silver in 36.31 seconds, and Egypt’s Ammar Ahmed Waseef took bronze in 36.51 seconds.
Mohab Ehab won the men’s 400-meter surface race and then the 800-meter the following day, with his compatriot Mahmoud Waleed Ali finishing second in both. Ali later won the 200-meter surface race. In the women’s events, Nada Magdy won the 800-meter surface race on 28 October and the 400-meter on 29 October, with Malak Sherif second both times. Ahmed Mohamed Aly delivered Egypt’s seventh title in the 400-meter bi-fins on the first day.
The Egyptian University Sports Federation organized the championship with the Egyptian Diving and Lifesaving Federation. Participating countries include France, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt.
The event was originally scheduled for 10 to 11 April at the same resort city, but was postponed over “growing security concerns in the Middle East region,” and the CMAS calendar listed it only as postponed for a time. FISU later announced the new dates.
The sport itself is less familiar to many spectators than conventional swimming. Finswimming is governed by CMAS, and competitors race with fins, often a single monofin, on the surface with a snorkel or underwater. A second discipline, bi-fins racing with two fins, was first contested with CMAS-approved equipment in 2007.
Finswimming’s roots lie in Europe, as the sport developed after rubber fins became widely available in the 1930s, and the first competition in the Soviet Union was held in 1958. CMAS, founded in Monaco in January 1959, became the sport’s world governing body and today oversees 11 underwater sports, including finswimming.
The first European championship featuring finswimming was held in Angera, Italy, in 1967, and a separate finswimming European championship followed in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1969. The first world championships were held in Hanover, Germany, in 1976. Finswimming then appeared at the inaugural World Games in Santa Clara, Calif., in 1981. The first world junior championship followed in Hungary in 1989.
Egypt hosted the 16th World Junior Championship in Sharm El-Sheikh from 28 July to 4 August in 2019 and finished fourth. In 2022, the national team won 18 medals across the senior, junior, and masters categories at the world championships in Italy. In 2023, Egypt hosted the first CMAS African Seniors Finswimming Championship in Sharm El-Sheikh from 1 to 6 November. The team then also won 19 medals at the world championships in France in 2024, and 31 medals when it hosted the open-water world championships in El Alamein in 2025.
Egypt has hosted finswimming events before, but last week marked the first time a world university championship in the sport came to the region.
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