london2012
London 2012, Olympics

Olympic Aquatic Centre – don’t believe all you read

There’s been a lot in the press recently about why London’s Olympic Aquatic Centre will be a “fast pool”. There are many quoted reasons why this would be, but they aren’t always exclusive to London or unusual in any way. The swimmers certainly like the facility and undoubtedly it is and will be a fast pool but not perhaps for the reasons reported. Here’s why:

The Olympic Aquatic Centre
London's Aquatic Centre - fast but not unusual

1. It’s deep at 3m
Deep pools are fast – there are no doubts about that. The increased depth allows turbulence to dissipate and prevents waves rebounding off the pool floor with significant force. Having a 3m deep pool is a definite advantage, but it’s been done numerous times before. The temporary pools in Shanghai and Melbourne for the world championships were 3m which is the depth recommended by FINA. The Water Cube in Beijing, at the time quoted to be the fastest Olympic pool ever was also 3m deep.

2. It has no gutters

The old style gutters you could hang onto are long gone; all pools now are deck level, allowing waves to run over the side and into a trough behind. This has been standard practice in swimming pool design for at least 20 years. Hardly a radical departure for London.

3. It’s cold at 26 degrees
Cold water is denser and hence allows greater force to be applied (although correspondingly the drag on swimmers increases). Most leisure pools are kept at around 30 degrees, so the aquatic centre water would feel cold, but FINA rules required the temperature to be between 25 and 28 degrees C. London is simply at the bottom end of that expected range.

4. Only the middle 8 lanes of 10 are being used.

Having two spare lanes at the edges, in combination with a deck level arrangement, will help to reduce turbulence, allowing it to dissipate away from the last occupied lanes over the edge of the pool. But 10 lane pools are not new – Sheffield’s Ponds Forge is 10 lanes and was constructed in 1991. Again FINA’s facility requirements for global championships mandate this arrangement.

All of these things go to make a fast pool, and it is a superb facility, it’s just London didn’t get there first.