Competition and training pools

Built for competition, used every day

A competition pool is rarely used only for competition. On a normal day it hosts club training, swimming lessons, school swimming and lane swimming, often at the same time. A good design serves both: the precision that official events require, and the flexibility that daily operation needs.

Myrtha pools are prefabricated industrially, which gives the geometric precision a certified competition length depends on. Myrtha is an official partner of World Aquatics and has built pools for the last five Olympic Games, most recently Paris 2024.

What an Olympic-size pool requires

• Length: World Aquatics requires exactly 50.000 m. With touch panels, the tolerance is +0.010 m and −0.000 m, measured from 0.3 m above to 0.8 m below the water surface.
• Lanes: generally 2.5 m wide; a 10-lane configuration gives a 25 m wide racing area plus side buffers.
• Depth: new competition pools are often 2 to 3 m deep; deeper water reduces turbulence.
• Water temperature: between 25.0 °C and 28.0 °C.
• Starting blocks: platform 0.50 to 0.75 m above the water.

Requirements differ per level of competition and per federation. We check the applicable rules of World Aquatics and the national federations (KNZB in the Netherlands, Belswim with Zwemfed and FFBN in Belgium, FLNS in Luxembourg) with you early in the design.

One pool, several programmes

• Movable floor: changes the depth of all or part of the pool in a few minutes, without draining it. Shallow for lessons, deep for competition.
• Movable bulkhead: divides a 50-metre pool into two 25-metre pools, or into zones for different groups at the same time.
• Removable headwalls: create the raised end wall that competition requires, without interrupting a perimeter overflow edge.

Renovating an existing competition pool

Many competition pools in the Netherlands and Belgium date from the 1970s and 1980s. With RenovAction, a new stainless steel pool is built inside the existing shell. Where the competition length must be kept, the support rails can be recessed into the wall. The Twentebad in Hengelo and Saint-Servais in Namur were renovated this way.