South African Olympic champion Chad Le Clos has ambitions outside water, as the 25-year-old is pursing building a new pool in the heart of Cape Town. Hoping to inspire youth and generate potential future Olympic talent, Le Clos is reportedly looking for an established stadium where he could install a 50m pool that could be used for both elite and budding stars alike.
“It is an indoor facility, a stadium that is not being used, and we are going to drop a pool in there and it has everything,” he explained. “I want to host nationals and a World Cup there some day. If I can raise close to R3 or R4 million, then I’ll get the rest, including a 25-metre warm-up pool.
“I’ve got plans and I’ve sent the proposals to a few people,” Le Clos told Independent Media.
“At the moment we are hopefully going to get an answer about getting the pool. We have an awesome piece of land in town and it is in a central location,” Le Clos said.
“Once we get the thumbs up from government we can move forward and look for a major sponsor, preferably a big corporate, to back us and fund the project. We already have the coaches and the structures in place. It is now about getting the funding behind us.” (IOL)
The 2016 Olympic silver medalist in the men’s 200m freestyle, Le Clo states about his project, “Going forward it will go much deeper than just high performance but also youth development for underprivileged communities.There are a lot of good things behind it and it is just getting someone on board that will help support us.”
In the meantime, Le Clos looks primed to capture his 4th FINA World Cup Series title, as the 2nd stop of the final cluster wrapped up in Tokyo today. This weekend the athletes move on to Singapore in their final bid for overall series and cluster points.
LeClos is probably the most interesting character in pro swimming, more power to him.