When the 600 plus athletes arrive to compete at the European Short Course Championships in Herning they will be racing in a pool that some will be quite familiar with, well at least familiar with some of the pieces of the pool. The facility at Jyske Bank BOXEN in Herning will consist of two temporary 25 meter tanks that will be built with pieces of the pools that were used at the Olympics in London and the World Championships in Barcelona.
Like many major competitions the championships will leave a legacy of a facility that the citizens of Herning can take advantage of. In Herning that facility will be created with a green philosophy in mind as they will once again reuse material from the temporary facility to build a permanent 50 meter pool.
The process is something that Johannes Poulsen the Chairman of the Herning Municipality Culture and Leisure Department is very proud of, “I thought the first planning ideas in connection with the establishment of Jyske Bank BOXEN, was one of the wildest, we could dream that the arena would one day be able to accommodate an international swim meet,” said Poulsen.
“The dream is finally coming true with the European Swimming Championships. But not only that it is technically an enormous achievement of the house. At the same time there is also a great story in that parts of the two pools that are set up temporarily for the event, is recycled from the London Olympics and the World Championships in Barcelona. And the other parts of the basins will be reused for the new permanent 50m pool to be built near Herning Indoor pool next year.”
The organizers of the event hope that others will use this as an example of how they can use a philosophy of sustainability to build facilities when hosting events.
So it is almost a home pool for multiple of swimmers.