Carolina Aquatics, based primarily out of Columbia, SC, has announced that they have partnered with Top Spin/Body Shop Max to offer new training space for their team. The six lane, 25m outdoor pool is roughly fifteen miles outside of Columbia in Lexington, SC.
Top Spin/Body Shop Max is a tennis and cross fit facility that also owned and maintained the pool. However, the pool was somewhat unusable for high level swimming training during the summers as it didn’t have effective infrastructure to keep it cool during the hot South Carolina summers.
“Carolina Aquatics, a non-profit organization, invested a major portion of our reserves, in a new “variable speed pump” and a heating / cooling system called the Great Big Bopper. This unit not only heats the pool in the cooler months, but also has the ability to cool the pool in the warmer months, making the new Top Spin Pool, the “coolest pool in town”. -Tripp Montgomery, Head Coach Carolina Aquatics
As a result of the facility, Carolina Aquatics has been able to add 35 members to their club. The addition of the facility is also positive in the context of South Carolina, which suffers from a lack of year-round swimming facilities. As a result, South Carolina has perhaps the earliest and shortest high school swimming season, wrapping up in early October.
The partnership was the result of months of hard work from both Carolina Aquatics Head Coach Tripp Montgomery and Top Spin/Body Shop Max owner Chris Wooten, as well as many volunteers and athletes in the Carolina Aquatics organization. The result, in the words of Montgomery is a “win-win” for all involved.
