You all better go out and measure the pool you swim in, it may not be the true length it is advertise as! 25 yards may not be 25 yards and the same goes for 25 meters.
I work for a general contractor and we were selected to build an aquatic center. Today, I was looking at the drawings for the competition pool area and came across something that made me wonder about the accuracy of how pools are built. The pool is going to be configured as a 25 meter x 25 yard pool. I’m guessing they want to be able to accommodate for either distance. But, regardless of if it’s a 25 yard or 25 meter pool, the thing that shocked me was the dimensions on the drawings. In the 25 yard direction, the overall dimension from wall to wall is listed as 75’-1" and below the 75’-1" dimension it lists (25 yards) in parentheses. And in the 25 meter direction, the dimension from wall to wall is listed as 82’-1" and below the 82’-1" dimension it lists (25 meters) in parentheses. These dimensions are shown from finish face to finish face, so it’s not like they are holding it short to accommodate for tile or something. So according to these drawings, the pool is actually going to be an inch longer in the 25 yard direction and almost 3/4" long in the 25 meter direction. I know it’s an inch or less, but shouldn’t it be a true 25 yard and 25 meter length? It seems that every high school swim meet they have there, they are already at a disadvantage since it is going to be longer than regulation length.
You all better go out and measure your pools!!! Hopefully they are longer, and not shorter than advertised. Some of you may be disappointed if they are shorter. haha
I guess the lengths are OK. I just found the requirements to be a certified pool on the USA Swimming website and it says the following:
103.3 RACING COURSE DIMENSIONS
C. Dimensional Tolerance: Against the required length, a tolerance of plus (+) 0.03 meters (1 and 3/16ths of an inch) in a vertical plane
extending 0.3 meters (12 inches) above and 0.8 meters (2 feet, 7 and 1/2 inches) below the surface of the water at all points of both end
walls.
So the pool can be built to a tolerance of (+) 1-3/16". I never knew…
I remember my swim team laser-measured our pool to make sure it was 25 meters + 1 inch so that we could buy and use touchpads legally in our meets since we weren’t sure if it was or not. It’s a feature, not a bug.
I also made my pool about an inch longer on my plans, but it then took up the difference in tiles and mortar on both ends. Is it possible they are tiling the pool?? Lots of pools i see are at the very least tiled at the top where you turn, then plaster below that…
The touch pad thing is also a good explanation. I wonder how many short pools we swim in with pads that were built to spec without them in mind?
I also made my pool about an inch longer on my plans, but it then took up the difference in tiles and mortar on both ends. Is it possible they are tiling the pool?? Lots of pools i see are at the very least tiled at the top where you turn, then plaster below that…
I initially thought that they were going to make up for the difference in tile and mortar too, but they are actually flushing the tile with the finish face of concrete, so the concrete will be depressed to allow for the tile to flush out.
The touch pad thing is also a good explanation. I wonder how many short pools we swim in with pads that were built to spec without them in mind?
I was wondering that too, but I think most pools are actually built long. I even found a recommendation from USA Swimming saying the following:
“Pool Length – Short Course 25 yards (25 meters is not a popular distance in most areas of swimming). The 25 yard pool should be built 75 feet 1 & 3/16” long. This measurement has a 0 tolerance for being shorter and should not be more than fractions of an inch longer. Long Course 50 meters. The 50 meter pool should be built 50.03 meter long with the same tolerances applicable as above.”
I would definitely build it longer if I was looking to get certified, especially with that 0 tolerance for being shorter. I suppose if you are going to use touch pads, you’ll want to be sure you aren’t even a micron of an inch shorter than the required length. I was looking at some touch pads out there, and some of them are up to 5/8" thick!
One of the pools here in Virginia Beach was originally 3 or 4 inches short, and they figured that out when every single record at a state HS meet fell. Now, they basically donut-shaped each lane by a little bit for the area where you turn/finish, so the laneline holders are still at the original length, but the official length of the pool is legit. It’s weird; it looks like the lanes are tired from being pushed on for years or something.
For the FINA (International Swimming Federation) Masters World Championships in 2006, the secondary pool (Baker Pool) had to be slightly adjusted so it could meet the standard. For the 50m pool and touchpads at both ends, the pool would have been .5 inch too short. So, Stanford spent a bunch to “shave” the wall that .5 inch. It was probably worth the many dozens of recognized world records in that pool.
Years ago in my home town a new pool was built at 25 M-- well the first HS meet records were falling and they remeasured the pool at exactly 24M!!! To expensive to fix post build so no longer used for meets and purely recreational - but all the triathletes love their new faster times
Back when I was in the armed forces, one of the bases built a 50m pool…but they intentionally made it 49.5m so that the base would not be pressured to “lending pool time” to local community competitions. How pathetic was that? The base commander really lost an opportunity to build bridges with the community.
…and then there is Kitsilano pool in Vancouver…one length = 137m
local pool to me has 25m and a 25yd pool in the same complex…I could always outswim one Triguy, but he kept telling everyone he was doing 400m time trials about 20 seconds quicker than I knew he could swim, telling people that he was snadbagging me in training…He neglected to mention it was in the 25yd pool…one length short buddy !
Back when I was in the armed forces, one of the bases built a 50m pool…but they intentionally made it 49.5m so that the base would not be pressured to “lending pool time” to local community competitions. How pathetic was that? The base commander really lost an opportunity to build bridges with the community.
They did that w/ the Navy SEAL pool in Little Creek, VA too. Theirs is, I believe, 45m…but for the same reason(s).
Back when I was in the armed forces, one of the bases built a 50m pool…but they intentionally made it 49.5m so that the base would not be pressured to “lending pool time” to local community competitions.
I used to swim in a 55 yd pool that I heard was built that way to keep competitions out also. It was out in the boonies near Sacramento and at the time Sacramento didn’t have a single 50 M pool.
55y is “Coomonwealth metric” and was a desperate attempt to keep metric at bay. 55y is 11 inches longer than 50m. University of Pittsburgh’s pool was built 55y, and had fiberglass blocks installed at the end of the lanes to make it metric. Until the renovation a few years ago.
3 laps per 100 probably sounds weird to most, but I grew up swimming year round in the 20yd indoor pool of a retirement home that my team rented lane space from. It is probably part of the reason I’m so good at flip turns, but have comparatively worse top of the water speed.
From a coaching standpoint, a 20yd pool is probably better for kids anyway. It is quicker to walk from one end to the other, you get better quality drills, and more practice with turns too.
