The organizers of the annual Copa Internacional swim meet in Mexico have announced three huge international names as headline performers at their 2026 short course meet. Individual Olympic gold medalists Kyle Chalmers, Adam Peaty, and Thomas Ceccon.
The meet will be held from September 4-6 in Querétaro, Mexico. This will be the short course meters edition, after a long course version was held in February.
The event has attracted a number of high profile international athletes over the years, with a program that includes clinics for local athletes. Among the names who have raced in the past include Leon Marchand, Hubert Kos, Cesar Cielo, Anthony Ervin, Kelsi Dahlia, Alia Atkinson, Jay Litherland, Michael Andrew, Chase Kalisz, Arno Kamminga, Katinka Hosszu, Felipe Lima, and Nic Fink.
Three new swimming superstar names will join that list this year.
Chalmers, now 27, won the Olympic gold medal in the 100 free at the 2016 Rio Olympics when he was only 18 years old. Since then, he has added on eight more Olympic medals, including back-to-back silvers in his pet event, the 100 free. He is also a nine-time World Champion.
Peaty, with little dispute, is the greatest sprint breaststroker of all-time, having won back-to-back golds in 2016 and 2020 in the 100 meter race, then adding silver in Paris after battling injury. He also has three Olympic relay medals.
In that event, he lowered the World Record by 1.58 seconds from 2015 through 2019 in long course.
Peaty has always been dialed in for long course, with starts and turns that make him less-dominant in short course, but he does have a Short Course World Championship and twice set the World Record in the 100 breaststroke in short course meters, showing just how far ahead of the world he was on top of the water in his prime.
He recently married celebrity daughter Hollie Ramsay and joined a new training base in London ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics.
The Italian star Ceccon is the youngest of the three at 25. He will make his debut at the Copa Internacional in spite of recently teasing that he might be retiring (though that post was widely accepted to be satirical).
He too has an individual Olympic gold medal, having won the 100 back at the Paris Olympics. That joins with three relay medals and 19 total World Championship medals for an impressive resume.
The three swimmers all have different specialties, though there is a potential head-to-head between Ceccon and Chalmers in the sprint freestyle events on the docket.
The meet will happen after all three swimmers finish their primary summer championship.
More details about the meet can be found on the event website here.
Gosh, picture of “Adam Peaty” giving serious Kyle Chalmers vibes. Goggles are great disguise, but the tats should be a good give away, even to casual American fans.
Both are daddies.
Ah. Got pic swapped.