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4 Olym Swim Venue Geeks...


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/\/\/ THanks, JMark for finding working links.

I pull this quote from the 1976 Montreal pool:

The Olympic pool has remained the premier place for Canada's national championships and Olympic Trials, since both the competition pool and warm-down pool remain intact and no one has built a pool elsewhere to match it. The pool was not used for the 2005 world championships held in Montreal, as FINA and Montreal organizers chose to host the meet outdoors at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Saint Helen's Island, where two new competition pools were built.

That right there is the WHOLE NUB of Olympic/sports events EXTRAVAGANCE!! There's a perfectly good INDOOR pool with a history, yet the Federation CHOOSES to ignore it and BUILD ANOTHER site when it returns to this ex-Olympic host city!! So right there is why citizens are now waking and rebelling against the TOTALLY USELESS waste for sporting venues -- and how spending for them just feeds into the vanity of the sports federations and the officials who head them. And how could the Montreal and Canadian organizers of 2005 agree to such wasteful extravagance?? As if they never learned the first time!!

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/\/\/ THanks, JMark for finding working links.

I pull this quote from the 1976 Montreal pool:

That right there is the WHOLE NUB of Olympic/sports events EXTRAVAGANCE!! There's a perfectly good INDOOR pool with a history, yet the Federation CHOOSES to ignore it and BUILD ANOTHER site when it returns to this ex-Olympic host city!! So right there is why citizens are now waking and rebelling against the TOTALLY USELESS waste for sporting venues -- and how spending for them just feeds into the vanity of the sports federations and the officials who head them. And how could the Montreal and Canadian organizers of 2005 agree to such wasteful extravagance?? As if they never learned the first time!!

Montreal's pool is probably the most used of any former Olympic swimming pool. It's the national training centre for the swimming, diving and synchro teams. It's the one of only a couple legit national facilities for the Canadian team. It also gets regular use from the public. Montreal's aquatic facility might in fact be the best example of an Olympic pool legacy.

The pool is not large enough or modern enough to hold a FINA event. The organizers were strapped for cash, and decided instead to build two new pools on the island, with temporary seating, that was removed post-championships. Those pools are now regularly used by the public in the summer.

So, as a result, Montreal ended up with a cheap, cost efficient new swimming facility. It was literally the same cost as building a public pool. Again Baron, you've been schooled because you can't do any research.

These are the pools built in 2005 for the record: http://www.paralympic.org/sites/default/files/images/130123173541865_societe+du+parc+jean+drapeau.mainpicture_612.jpg

Not exactly a massive expenditure. This was all built in the spring of 2005 too.

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The organizers were strapped for cash, and decided instead to build two new pools on the island, with temporary seating, that was removed post-championships.

Instead of using an existing pool??? Wow!! Do you realize how idiotic that statement is, that you just made? :blink::blink: How come when I'm strapped for cash, I just use my old clothes? I don't go out and buy 2 new suits when I'm strapped for cash. Did I miss out on something?

I have to go to that Montreal School of Olympic Accounting -- probably set up by the same people as the Sochi Accounting School. Of course, you conveniently forget that the next year, 2006, when Montreal hosted the 1st OutGames, they again LOST Can$5.3mil (US$4.2 million), just one year after -- by your calculations, saved some $$ for the FINA WOrld championships by not using an existing Olympic pool but building two NEW pools when they didn't have money to spend??? :wacko: And 2006, being the 30th anniversary of the financial debacle of 1976; hoping they would have retired that 30-year old debt -- instead went into another Can$5.3 mil hole for another sports event. Amazing!!

I definitely want some of those magic beans Montreal Olympic people eat. And you have the nerve to lecture me as if I were an idiot. As if the additional research would give me additional respect for the Montreal organizers -- whose HOLE in the head probably gets bigger than the Big O! :wacko:

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Ofan,

Gotta say I doubt your statement that the MTL pool is the 'most used' of any former pool. Sydney's Intl Aquatic Centre used for 2000 is the home of one of the best national swimming teams in the world, aside from functioning as the major swimming centre for Greater Sydney. Not sure if that even makes it the 'most used' (im thinking of the university pools of LA and Atlanta here), but I reckon it would have as much, if not more, utilisation as Montreal.

However what can be stated without shadow of a doubt is the least used in the past 40 years would have to be Seoul and Athens. I read somewhere that the main competition pool in Seoul is drained most of the year and the smaller pool sees Aqua aerobics?

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Ofan,

Gotta say I doubt your statement that the MTL pool is the 'most used' of any former pool. Sydney's Intl Aquatic Centre used for 2000 is the home of one of the best national swimming teams in the world, aside from functioning as the major swimming centre for Greater Sydney. Not sure if that even makes it the 'most used' (im thinking of the university pools of LA and Atlanta here), but I reckon it would have as much, if not more, utilisation as Montreal.

However what can be stated without shadow of a doubt is the least used in the past 40 years would have to be Seoul and Athens. I read somewhere that the main competition pool in Seoul is drained most of the year and the smaller pool sees Aqua aerobics?

Very true about the Sydney pool...it was packed beyond capacity well before the Games, especially as it has a 'play' component as well. It has made handsome profits since Day 1, not many Olympic venues do that.

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They built 2 new cheap pools instead of renovating the Olympic pool for millions. Montreal was also awarded the event in 2005. There wasn't enough time to get the Olympic Pool up to FINA specs.

Not exactly. Montreal was awarded the event in 2001, four years in advance as standard with the World Aquatics Championships, but screwed up on the finances, and got very little preparation done, causing FINA to panic, revoke the award, and ask for an alternative emergency host. The Montreal city authorities, well aware of how this was looking to the rest of the world, decided to bite the bullet, and applied to get the event award back, which they did at the beginning of 2005.

And of course, the old Olympic pool now is being upgraded too.

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I don't know what FINA's requirements are in terms of venue capacities, but Montreal is far from the first city to hold the World Aquatics Championships and expand beyond an existing venue. Barcelona (which hosted in 2003 and again in 2013.. I know the latter because I was there) built a temporary pool at Palau Sant Jordi to augment the pool at Bernat Picornell (which was used primarily for Water Polo) and the Montjuic pool used for diving. I don't know the specifics of what happened with Montreal, but there's a big difference between a venue being suitable for national championships and Olympics trials and to have the capacity and facilities necessary for hosting a world championships. So it's not so simple as to say that they have the venue, so why didn't they use it.

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Munich's pool is always quite busy when I'm doing a few lanes there...

I think it always makes sense to turn the pool into a public recreational pool with some time for athlete training, this should generate income. Though maintaining pools at least here is usually more expensive than ticket fees etc can generate as income, so depend on public money quite often.

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I don't know what FINA's requirements are in terms of venue capacities, but Montreal is far from the first city to hold the World Aquatics Championships and expand beyond an existing venue. Barcelona (which hosted in 2003 and again in 2013.. I know the latter because I was there) built a temporary pool at Palau Sant Jordi to augment the pool at Bernat Picornell (which was used primarily for Water Polo) and the Montjuic pool used for diving. I don't know the specifics of what happened with Montreal, but there's a big difference between a venue being suitable for national championships and Olympics trials and to have the capacity and facilities necessary for hosting a world championships. So it's not so simple as to say that they have the venue, so why didn't they use it.

But by Barcelona's example that you mention above, they just augmented the Bernat Picornell pool with 2 others. So not unless, the 2 other pools built in Montreal were ones to augment the existing main Olympic pool, then do I find the bypassing of the main pool as in Montreal's example, highly undesirable. Altho again, there already was water polo and diving in 1992, so why did Barcelona again need extra or new pools for 2003?

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Also remember that putting the swimming on the island made the event compact. Even open water swimming was right nearby. Montreal would have had to build additional pools outside of the Olympic one for water polo anyways.

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Also remember that putting the swimming on the island made the event compact. Even open water swimming was right nearby. Montreal would have had to build additional pools outside of the Olympic one for water polo anyways.

Where was Water Polo played in 1976? Why wasn't that used? Compact does NOT really count in a world championships because there aren't 20 other competitions going on at the same time as it does in an Olympics.

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But by Barcelona's example that you mention above, they just augmented the Bernat Picornell pool with 2 others. So not unless, the 2 other pools built in Montreal were ones to augment the existing main Olympic pool, then do I find the bypassing of the main pool as in Montreal's example, highly undesirable. Altho again, there already was water polo and diving in 1992, so why did Barcelona again need extra or new pools for 2003?

Capacity. Remember that most of the seats at Picornell in '92 were temporary. They can get more people Sant Jordi with a temporary pool. Again, don't know if FINA has requirements in that regard, but that's part of it. Also, there was no women's water polo tournament in 1992, only a men's tournament with 12 teams. Last year's world championships were 2 16-team tournaments. So whereas in '92, they held water polo at Montjuic and synchro at Picornell, having the extra venue last year made it easier to schedule all the competitions. And I wasn't fine with that.. I got to visit all 3 venues and saw diving, swimming, and a U.S. women's water polo match

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Montreal's pool will lose tenants as they move down to Toronto. Montreal was awarded 2005 within a reasonable time, then stripped of the event due to not having financial guarantees. They were re-awarded the championships only when funding was secured.

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