Even before the Olympic swimming competition begins this weekend, gawkers have made their way to the Space Age-looking Aquatic Centre. Sure, they’d love to catch a glimpse of Oz icon Ian Thorpe, who many believe will break his own world record in the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night. But true swimming aficionados settle for a peek at the rumored “fast pool.” This pool has great karma for the Aussies. In it, Thorpe broke the world record in both the 200- and the 400-meter freestyle during Australia’s Olympic Team Trials. And Australia’s sweetheart Susie O’Neill smashed the 200-meter butterfly record, one of the longest standing records ever.
Those looking for the secret to their speed in the concrete will first notice that the pool has no gutters. The water is flush with the side of the pool and washes over the top of the pooldeck. There it drains into grates instead of washing back into the pool and creating waves that slow the swimmers.
Swimmers in previous Olympics might just as well have been thrashing across Sydney’s Darling Harbor for all the turbulence. This Olympic pool is placid by comparison. Round plastic buoys that stretch the length of the pool divide the lanes. The multi-colored floats break down rough water, keeping one swimmer’s waves from breaking in the neighboring lane. The changing colors of those buoys–white in the last five meters, for example–help orient swimmers and aid them to pace themselves. The last step to turbulence-busting is water depth. The Sydney pool is three meters deep, a full meter deeper than most racing pools. The more water in the pool, the less it moves around. To make the water itself any faster, officials would have had to use salt water, the most buoyant on earth. The Aquatic Centre water is kept at 27 degrees Celsius, or a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the perfect temperature to ensure that a swimmer’s muscles are limber. Computers control the temperature. The pool is treated with ozone, which is tasteless and odorless and swimmer-friendly, rather than chlorine. (Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Australia’s top male swimmer, Thorpe, is allergic to chlorine.) The ozone-treated water should also be a welcome change for the U.S. swimmers. During their trials in Indianapolis, the chlorine was so overwhelming that swimmers got red eyes and slight headaches.
Perfect temperature and soft water, of course, are more mental than physical boosts. As is the loud, pounding rock music they will play as the athletes walk onto the deck before they race. But swimming fast is also psychological. As Coach Talbot puts it, “When a swimmer is ready to swim fast, they’ll swim fast in molasses.” Thankfully, they won’t have to.
