BUDAPEST
DUNA ARENA
Swimming and Diving events
Built in a world record pace of two years, the Arena served as the main venue of the 2017 FINA World Championships. After that event, the complex was reshaped to legacy mood but still can accommodate approximately 5000 spectators.
It features two Olympic-size pools – the main pool with 3m depth – and a diving pool, and in the adjacent Dagaly Beach there is another 50m outdoor pool and a 25m 6-lane pool to be used if necessary. Thanks to its careful planning, the Duna Arena is considered one of the best aquatic complexes in the world – indeed, in 2017 it became the first-ever classical indoor complex to stage the swimming meet of a World Championships (between 1973 and 2015, the swimming competitions were held either outdoors or in temporary pools in multisport arenas at the World Championships).
Since 2018, the Duna Arena hosted a wide range of FINA events: legs of the Swimming World Cup series (2018, 2019, 2021), the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships (2019), the FINA Champion Swim Series (2019), the FINA Water Polo World League Super Finals (men: 2018, women: 2019), legs of the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series (2018, 2019), the FINA World Junior Artistic Swimming Championships (2019) – plus a handful of continental showcases like the Champions League Final Six (2017), the European Water Polo Championships (2020) and the European Aquatics Championships (2021).
Address: Duna Arena - Népfürdő utca 36, Budapest, Hungary, 1138
ALFRED HAJOS SWIMMING COMPLEX
Artistic Swimming and Water Polo
The Alfred Hajos Swimming Complex situated in the Margaret Island is a historical venue where legends were born in the past 90 years. The indoor complex, designed by – and named after – Alfred Hajos, swimming’s first Olympic champion in 1896, was built in 1930 and became the continental Europe’s first-ever indoor pool used for sport purposes. Eight years later the outdoor 50m pool was added which shall host the very best of water polo action once more this summer – its seating capacity is 5,000 but can be enlarged to 7-8,000. For the 1958 Europeans the old diving tower and the 33m outdoor pool was added, then, in 2006, another 3m deep, 10-lane outdoor pool and a new diving facility was constructed.
The complex is unique as it’s located in the green heart of Budapest – apart from swimming complexes, an athletic field, two hotels, an outdoor theatre and a couple of restaurants, the island is a closed area, further constructions are forbidden once and for all and public car traffic is also barred.
During nine decades, the complex hosted some memorable events with the water polo tournament of the 2017 FINA World Championships on top. Before that, the 1958, 2006 and 2010 European Aquatics Championships, the 2001 and 2014 European Water Polo Championships took pace here, as well as the Champions League Finals (2002, 2004, 2016), the FINA Water Polo World Cup (2006), the European Junior Swimming Championships (2005), just to mention the international highlights.
Water polo shall return to the well-known ‘old’ 50m outdoor pool, while artistic swimming will visit the new 50m outdoor pool again after the 2006 and 2010 Europeans.
LAKE LUPA
Open Water Swimming
It’s a brand new venue, debuted at last year’s Europeans. Called Lake Lupa, it’s a 15min drive from Budapest, an artificial mine-lake, with 3-5m depth almost immediately at the shores. The lakeside was turned into a summer beach paradise by an entrepreneur so it has a lot of service facilities and buildings, offering very comfortable spaces for large-scale sporting events too.
What makes it unique is its water source: the lake is filled with the very same water Budapest drinks, the owners have a certificate that the water quality is 99.2% of drinking water, the missing 0.8% is the chlorine which has to be added to claim a 100% in measures before pumping the water to the pipes.