Olympic and World Champion, Adam Peaty recently joined the growing list of athletes to find ways to train while pools remain closed. Peaty, along with other members of Great Britain’s national team, partnered with Bedfordshire Hot Tubs Limited as well as the Jacuzzi brand to receive Swim Spa’s, a flume pool similar to those made by Endless Pools.
The partnership was facilitated by Peaty’s training partner and former Youth Commonwealth Games Champion, Edward Baxter. Baxter, through his connections with the owner of Bedfordshire Hot Tubs Limited, and with the help of Mel Marshall, the coach he shares with Peaty, was able to secure eight pools to be temporarily installed at the homes of members of the English National Team.
In addition to Peaty, Anna Hopkin, who made waves this year in the NCAA swimming for Arkansas and is now training with Loughborough, Ben Proud, James Guy, marathon swimmer Jack Burnell, Luke Greenbank, Sarah Vasey, and Tom Dean all received pools installed at their homes. This puts them among a small group of swimmers in Great Britain able to secure water time, as the country remains in lockdown.
While Swim England has yet to establish a set time table for the reopening of pools, it appears as if it may not be in the near future. Richard Lamburn, Swim England’s Head of Facilities, said that it would take roughly 3 weeks to get pulls across the country operating again once they are able to begin working on them.Â
Great Britain isn’t the first country who’s athletes have made use of unorthodox pool space. Many of Australia’s top athletes have made a return to the water using tether systems and endless pools.
While other countries struggle to find access to full-size pools, club teams in the United States are in the process of returning to the water. Beginning on May 1st teams such as the Mission Viejo Nadadores made a return to the pool, albeit under strict guidelines. The team is only swimming one athlete to a lane, meaning only 18 swimmers are able to train at one time.
England currently has roughly 125,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus, with just over 25,000 casualties attributed to the virus.
No Duncan Scott?
Seems like it was primarily Loughborough-attached swimmers, which Duncan Scott is not.
They don’t have running water north of the border. Scott trains in an ice cold tarn.
Scottish not English !
One team?
Why did they get swim spas instead of Endless Pools?
They got them from a hot tub company, so swim spas might have been all that was available to them.
as explained in the article, one of Peaty’s training friends had a deal with this particular company
Looks like they got the Mens medley relay team sorted. USA is going down. USA don’t even know who the team is yet /s
I am more surprised by the picture of Peaty swimming freestyle. I always pictured him being allergic to the other three strokes
dude put up a respetable (for a worldclass breaststroker) split in the 100FR on an ISL relay last season. I think 50.low or something
What do people think of training in an endless pool? They are great for instruction, but how about for building an aerobic base? Granted, something is better than nothing.
Hardly anyone in Australia has had an endless pool put in. Some are tethering though .
Tethering is the most cost effective option unless you can find a sponsor to “lend” you a pool.
The US national team should be getting supplements for systems like this if they don’t have access to the pool or the ocean.
A big problem is that manufacturing has been shut down in the US. The wait now for an endless pool is around 7 weeks. Low inventory. To get a pool to suit the needs of a competitive swimmer that is near or at national level cuts is not cheap. Ballpark cost is almost $40K. It’s not just a pool, it’s an investment and high performance machine.