There’s a little bit of an interesting quirk at the Olympic Trials pool in Omaha this year. Though the pool is a 10-lane pool, it wasn’t fitted for outside lane-ropes when USA Swimming made the late addition of switching prelims from an 8-lane course to a 10-lane course.
This means that in the morning, the swimmers in lanes “0” and lane “9” on the outside are up against the wall.
The 10-lane switch is also causing other adjustments in the prelims, as the underwater camera can’t be used because it would create a dangerous turn for swimmers in lane 9. The camera will be installed before each finals session to work around this.
Why is there a lane zero and not a Kane ten?
Ms. Powell – its so that when they take away the outside lanes in the final they’re left with 1-8. Otherwise they’d have 2-9 in finals which is confusing for tv.
Hah, I might be more worried about accidentally getting toasted by pyrotechnics!
Thank you. Now it make sense!
One of the first things i noticed. The outside lanes looked choppy from the stands, and the ladder looks like it’s up in your business.
I’d sure rather be seeded 31st and in lane 4 of heat n-minus-3 than seeded 30th and in lane 9 of heat n.
(you guys like how I dropped some algebra in there?! Aww yeah. #math)
It was weird to see at the Swimvitational, but since the pool was built for 25 yards wide, it didn’t surprise me there are no lane lines. The water’s surface is right at the edge of the pool. Any and all waves come off the pool and immediately onto the surface gutter system. It would be a bigger deal if it were short course, but given the pools consistent depth and the runoff gutters, turbulence didn’t seem to be an issue.
The only ones who would have a serious issue with this is backstrokers who can’t navigate without lines on the black-painted steel girders in the air space above the jumbotron (those swimmers are more than likely not at this… Read more »
How does this affect the swimmers in those lanes???It also looks like they don’t have as much room in their lanes…Is it just the camera angle?
Seems like a big goof to me..get it together USA Swimming