9/17/2008 11:20:00 AM 50-metre pool to be built soon Construction expected to take 18 months and cost between $15M and $20M
* Photo by Getty Images. Big splash: Bermuda’s swimming programme will get a big boost when the new Olympic-size swimming pool is built at the National Centre. Roy Burch is seen above competing in a 50-metre pool.
El James is hoping to dive in and help the swimming community, but the ensuing splash will also benefit cricket.
At the Sports Conference held at the Elbow Beach in February, the sports minister promised that a 50-metre swimming pool would be built sooner rather than later.
He's hoping the final details can be ironed out and construction will begin on the $15 to $20M facility.
James said in an interview with the Bermuda Sun: "We are looking for an 18-month period for construction."
The pool would be built at the National Centre in between the football and cricket fields.
James said: "We have a few 25 metre pools on the island right now, but if you're going to have any international meets, the requirement is a 50-metre pool.
"The only thing we don't have in our sports arsenal is a 50-metre pool. That's the one area where we cannot host an international game. We'll then have the cricket, the football, the diving, the track, the hockey. That's quite a list of sports."
Tab Froud, president of the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association, said he couldn't get into the specifics of discussions with the National Centre trustees about the 50-metre pool, he did add there will be nothing but positives for the island once it gets completed.
"It would certainly move the sport of swimming to a much higher level," Froud said. "This will allow us to grow the clubs and grow the programmes. Under our umbrella we also have water polo, we have synchronized swimming, we have diving - all those type of things will be able to be accommodated, if and when a 50-metre pool comes on board."
He said diving would start up almost immediately once the pool was built.
"I also know that water polo has approached us many times and they want to get started, but that's tough. Right now we only have two pools (Warwick and Saltus) with Sandy's coming on board shortly to give us three, but we don't have any available pool time. Our pools are basically used from six in the morning to nine o'clock at night almost is days a week, plus it's certainly used on Sundays as well. We just don't have any available pool time for these other clubs and associations to grow and start their sports.
Froud said: "We are constantly being asked by overseas people to come here and train in Bermuda. As soon as they find out all we have is a 25-metre pool, then it goes nowhere. We would be able to have overseas teams come down and have overseas competition. It would help our national team to have meets here on the island.
He said that while the pool would offer some benefit to Bermuda's top swimmers Kiera Aitken and Roy Burch, they would still have to be based overseas.
"Right now there is no competition for them here," Froud said. "For them just jumping in the pool and swimming against the clock, they'd get pretty bored right away. They need to be swimming against people of the same level so that they will be pushed."
Cricket
James said once construction is finished it would help Bermuda get approved to host official One Day International cricket matches. "We're not approved for one day internationals, it's not because of the soil, it's because we don't have proper changing rooms. The changing rooms are a bit small. So once we put in those new changing rooms for the swimming, we can then also use them for the cricket. Then the rooms that we have now we can use for the umpires because they have to have their own facility.
He added Bermuda also needs to get a proper scoreboard, but that's not a big deal.
"Once we do that we'll be able to get one day international status. We will be going for full one-day international certification once that's completed."
James said a facility to host NBA basketball and conferences is not on the table currently.
"The centre core is not a part of our plans at the moment. We have some other pressing issues in this country and to pursue the centre core is really not at the top of our priority list. We have a housing crises and other crises facing Bermuda."
