A total of 109 elites swimmers from 28 countries and regions, including Olympic champions Sun Yang, Ye Shiwen, Chad Le Clos, Katinka Hosszu, Sarah Sjostrom, will compete in the inaugural FINA Champions Swim Series during April. 27-28 in Guangzhou, China.

The FINA Champions Swim Series, which includes three legs in Asia, Europe and America, gathers the most recent Olympic and world medalists in different disciplines.

Guangzhou is the first leg of the three-stop Champions Series, as the second leg will be held during May 11-12 in Budapest, Hungary and third leg during May 31-June 1 in Indianapolis, United States.

The innovative elite swimming competition will distribute a total prize money about 3 million U.S. dollars. In addition, the swimmers will receive over 800,000 dollars in appearance fees and travel and accommodation expenses are fully covered by FINA.

There are 17 final races on the compact two-hour program, including 14 individual races and 3 relays every day, each of them composed of 4 swimmers instead of 8 on an invite-only basis.

All three meets of the Champions Swim Series are qualifying events for both the 2019 FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.