The diving pool might be a funny green colour, and the bay may not meet British standards for coastal sanitation, but for Team GB the first week of the Olympic Games has all been about the water. And just as the success of homegrown cyclists in London 2012 inspired the country to get out on their bikes, Rio 2016 seems to be encouraging people to seek out their local swimming pools.
The Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) said this weekend that it has seen a massive jump in the number of people searching online for their nearest leisure pool during the first few days of the Games, as Adam Peaty picked up Britain’s first gold medal, in the 100m breaststroke, and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor and Jazz Carlin each took silver.
British divers Chris Mears and Jack Laugher, and Dan Goodfellow with Tom Daley, also made the medals podium in the synchronised events, while the US swimming phenomenon that is 31-year-old Michael Phelps has astonished and inspired by striking gold again at his fifth Olympic Games.
Alison Clowes, the ASA’s head of media, said it had seen 80,000 people use their “poolfinder” app over the period 5-11 August – almost double the rate for the same period in July – and they were getting dozens of phone inquiries too. “We’ve already seen a boost from our Olympic successes, which is great,” she said.
In 2014, more than 2.6 million adults took part in a weekly swimming session in England and Wales, and half of all British schoolchildren regularly visit a pool, making it our highest participation sport, more popular than football or rugby.
Nevertheless, Clowes said, there is still work to be done if the success stories from Brazil are to leave a lasting legacy. Many smaller, older pools are being closed and local authority budget cuts are affecting spending levels for important facilities such as swimming pools.
Meanwhile, the average level of swimming proficiency among schoolchildren requires improvement.
“Swimming is now on the national curriculum for Key Stage One and Two, which is good. But our research shows that 52% of children are still leaving school unable to swim 25 metres unaided, so that’s a concern that we still need to be tackling.
“In general, although a lot of the older pools are coming to the end of their lives and being closed, many of the newer ones actually are bigger, with different uses. So, they’ll have a learning pool, a lanes pool, that kind of thing,” said Clowes.
“In terms of water space, that’s gone up. Birmingham, for example, has closed pools but their actual water space has increased.”
But swimming clubs and lane swimmers do regularly complain about the lack of large pools.
In new world record holder Adam Peaty’s home town of Derby, the city council has closed two pools, one permanently and one temporarily, blaming central government cuts to its budget. Peaty’s own swimming club, City of Derby, still struggles to get its members enough hours in the water.
Another Olympic swimmer, Ross Davenport, has criticised the state of “pool space” in Derby, saying club members had to travel into the next county for training.
However, ASA director of participation, Nick Caplin, said overall the picture was a positive one. “The success of our Team GB swimmers in Rio is brilliant and is clearly inspiring people watching at home,” he said.
“The great thing about swimming is that you don’t have to be an Olympian to do it. It doesn’t matter what age you are or your ability, once you are in the water you can have fun playing games, swimming lengths or just relaxing.”
