S'pore swimmer eyes 2025 world c’ships and 2028 Olympics
At first glance, it may not be immediately apparent that Artyom Lukasevits is Singaporean with his blond hair and blue eyes.
But there is no mistaking that he is a local. Born in Singapore to Estonian parents, he grew up here, orders his favourite local dishes like ban mian and chicken rice from kopitiams in Mandarin, which he learnt in school, and is due to enlist for national service in 2025.
Lukasevits is also a swimmer who has represented Singapore internationally. Most recently, he finished fourth at the Asian Open Water Swimming Championships in Hong Kong in early November.
“I’m a true-blue Singaporean. I’m just different on the outside but, on the inside, I’m the same as everyone else,” said the 20-year-old, who was speaking on Nov 29 at the sidelines of a sponsorship announcement for the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
At the Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay event, Pan Pacific Hotels Group, Trans-Eurokars Mazda and OCBC were unveiled as the first three national partners for the July 11-Aug 3 tournament, with a total sponsorship of $5 million.
The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) will also be one of the partners for the world championships, which will be held in South-east Asia for the first time.
When the world championships arrive next year, Lukasevits hopes to be among the athletes in action as he works towards his ultimate goal of qualifying for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Getting to the Games has been his dream since he picked up the sport when he was a child.
He started taking part in local competitions before entering the Singapore Sports School (SSP) and began specialising in long-distance events when he was about 15.
It was around the time that some of his peers were getting into open water swimming, piquing Lukasevits’ interest in the discipline as they went on to compete at the SEA Games.
A few years later, he took part in his first open water event, the SSA Open Water Swimming Major Games Qualifier 2022 at the National Service Resort and Country Club, finishing second and earning himself a spot at the 2022 world championships in Budapest, Hungary.
While his father had previously signed him up for the kid’s categories of triathlon events that involved him completing a 100-metre swim in the sea, his first 10km swim was different.
“I had done something like that before but never at the level that I had to go fast, go hard and race guys right next to me,” said Lukasevits, who is an SSP student under the school’s joint business programme with Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
Many are often curious about his love for open water swimming, given the discipline’s mental and physical demands.
Lukasevits recalled how at the peak of his preparations for the Asian Games in 2023, he would be up by 5am in the morning to train, with three sessions packed into the day. That routine saw him easily covering 100km in a week, double the load of pool swimmers.
The way he swims is also different. In the sea, the water is murky and swimmers have to look for buoys that mark the course, requiring them to lift their body out of the water more.
He said: “I like to call it a contact sport, we’re all really close to each other, your hand is touching someone’s feet, your feet is touching someone’s hand. I like the tactics aspect of it. The winner of open water is not necessarily the fastest guy, it’s the guy who was in the right spot at the right time, who’s prepared well enough, who’s skilled enough to win.”
All this will be on full display at Sentosa where open water swimming for the 2025 world championships will be held, along with high diving.
Mark Chay, co-chairperson of the event’s organising committee, also said on Nov 29 that works have already started on a temporary 4,800-seat facility for swimming and artistic swimming events at a carpark near the Kallang Tennis and Kallang Football Hubs.
He added that organisers are looking to have the facility up by May in time to host the South-east Asia Age Group Swimming Championships as a test event the following month.
In June 2024, the announcement that the venue for the swimming and artistic swimming events would be changed from the Singapore Indoor Stadium to this purpose-built facility raised questions about the cost of hosting the event.
Highlighting the importance of these sponsorships, Chay said: “It’s really great that local brands have come in to actually help us with respect to coming in with this kind of support.”
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