Trinidad & Tobago is on its way to having a top-tier swimming & diving facility, which the country believes will help its sports tourism industry.
The facility is already under construction in Couva, a town already home to the Cycling Velodrome, Ato Boldon Stadium (most often used for soccer, cricket and athletics) and the National Cricket Center. The hope is that other countries will travel to Couva for training, especially leading up to big events in the area, the largest being the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
“We have lovely beaches, we have lovely weather and what was missing was a world class swimming facility,” Trinidad & Tobago’s best-known swimmer George Bovell III told The Guardian. “Now we have that on track and we are going to put all the elements together to make it work.”
The facility will have two full-size 50-meter pools, one set up for competition and the other for warm up. It will also feature a separate diving well with a dry-diving facility on deck.
In The Guardian’s story, Bovell III said he had some input into the pool’s design. Bovell III has experience with engineering and construction in addition to holding 8 of T&T’s national swimming records.
Construction is scheduled to be completed next May, giving the facility a little over a year to operate prior to the Rio Olympics. Bovell III said the country would be a great place for teams and athletes to train leading up the the Games to get used to the South American climate and time zone.
“We have the 2016 Olympics in Brazil coming up and it would be great for athletes to come into T&T and quietly prepare for those games,” Bovell III said.
yay T&T is on Swimswam!!!
p.s. it most likely will NOT be finished by then
🙂 I was thinking the same thing, but, the work has been contracted out to a private company to do, so it might happen.
What they did not say in this article (but it was in the guardian) is that for the first six months or so after completion, they will be running tests on it to ensure it is up to par.