A sea of purple-clad supporters flocked to City Hall on Tuesday night (July 4) to show their support for the need of a new aquatic facility.

Robin Loyola, Team Manager with the Nose Creek Swim Association (NCSA), was in front of City Council to present on the need for a new aquatic centre specifically geared towards sports use.

Loyola began her presentation by pointing out that the current six lane pool, the only one in Airdrie, was built in 1979. Almost forty years later, the population of Airdrie has exploded, but the pool has not kept up. If the aquatic centre is closed for any reason, there are no alternatives for clubs that use the pools. When compared to other communities with similar populations, Airdrie falls far behind.

"If you look at Airdrie, it's just around 60,000 people," Loyola told DiscoverAirdrie. "Medicine Hat, 60,000 people, they have seven pools. Cochrane, population of 20,000, they have two pools."

Further, the old lane pool could soon be obsolete for training and competition. Airdrie's pool is only 25 meters long, and has a depth of 1.4 meters. FINA, or the International Swimming Federation, says the minimum depths of pools is 1.35 meters and 2 meters is recommended for diving off blocks, so if standards are changed, Airdrie's pool might not be suitable for training or meets. Swim Canada has also changed the lengths of pools for competitions to 50 meters, double the length of Airdrie's pool.

On top of that, NCSA has to constantly turn people away. For their 2016-2017 season, they had 160 families on wait lists. When registration opened this year on June 15, it was full by noon. Add to that swim lessons constantly being full, and Loyola thinks the need for an aquatic sports centre in Airdrie is clear.

Loyola believes more pool space is important, as swimming is a life skill. On top of that, it encourages girls to get into sports. Loyola said that swimming is the number one sport of choice for girls, and made the comparison that pools are like female hockey arenas.

In front of City Council, Loyola had a simple asks and lots of wants.

"The ask is for more pool space. The want is a 50 meter pool, which is double the length of what we currently have."

Loyola would also like to see a smaller cool down pool and a pool with enough depth for water polo, synchronized swimming and diving. If there were no limitations, Loyola envisions a facility that also has a running track and cycling track as well for triathletes. Loyola believes a facility like that would benefit Airdrie in more ways than one, providing more pool space and also attracting competitions and athletes from elsewhere, as no such facility exists in Canada, and even facilities with a 50 meter pool and a cool down pool are hard to find.

Loyola believes that her presentation opened Council's eyes to the need in the community.

"I think that it hopefully brought it up to the forefront, because I know that the pool has kind of been on the back burner, and the feeling I got from it was that some members of Council had brought it before to the City, but it just got back burnered all the time."

Loyola said that she knows that Airdrie has lots of other needs, but she hopes people will support a push for more pool space, as it impacts the lives and health of many in the community, especially our youngest members.

 

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com