Champion swimmers Sun Yang and Katie Ledecky targeted for Hong Kong leg of World Cup

The world's top swimmers, headed by five-time world championship gold medallist Katie Ledecky of the United States along with mainlanders Sun Yang and Ning Zetao, are on the wish-list for a leg of the World Cup in Hong Kong later this month.

Hong Kong Swimming Association president Ronnie Wong Man-chiu confirmed yesterday invitations had been extended to the three world-class swimmers for the event at Victoria Park Swimming Pool on September 25-26.

"The trio is our top targets as we are trying to bring the world's best swimmers to Hong Kong," said Wong, who is also chairman of Fina's Open Water Committee. "The World Cup series used to be a short-course competition but because of the 2016 Olympic Games, all eight rounds of this year have become long-course events as qualifiers for the Rio Games.

"Ledecky achieved a remarkable performance in Kazan, dominating the women's freestyle from 200 metres to 1,500 metres with two world records. Upcoming Ning is the first Asian to win the men's 100 metre freestyle in a world event while Sun is always a big name to many fans. I had the opportunity to speak to many representatives in Kazan and they reacted positively to our invitation. We have put up a deadline until the end of this week. Then we will have a clearer picture of the attending list."

Wong said they would subsidise air tickets, board and lodging for the invited swimmers, who include most of the gold medallists in Kazan.

"The Hong Kong leg is the first of a three-leg cluster in Asia, followed by Beijing [September 29-30] and Singapore [October 3-4] and hopefully this can attract more top-grade swimmers from Europe and North America as a one-stop shop," he said. "There will also be prize money in each leg and an overall jackpot at the end of the series."