West Virginia University will officially unveil its new aquatic center to the world tonight, hosting its first meet in the new facility: the West Virginia State Games.
Some of WVU’s swimmers & divers took social media followers on a tour of the new facility this week. You can find the video on Twitter, (@WVUSwimDive), but we’ve also embedded it below:
Hey @dpshow @swimswamnews @SwimmingWorld @collegeswimnews it's our 1st MEET Friday in our new home. Check it outhttps://t.co/Jt9orUlgZo#HailWV #WVstategames #LetsGo
— WVU Swim & Dive (@WVUSwimDive) November 1, 2019
The new home – the Aquatic Center at Mylan Park – is a 50-meter Olympic-sized pool with a movable bulkhead to allow the pool to be set up for short course yards, short course meters or long course meters competition. It’s got a separate diving well and seating for 1500 spectators.
In the video, swimmers and divers show off some more features of the new aquatic center, including a team room, video review for divers and a video board for spectators.
West Virginia has only been in the facility since Monday, October 21. They hosted an intrasquad meet in the old facility on September 28, and their only dual meet so far has been on the road at Penn State on October 12. The West Virginia State Games will be a two-day meet (November 1-2), starting Friday and finishing Saturday morning. It’s an 8-team meet featuring West Virginia, Alderson Broaddus, Davis & Elkins, Fairmont State, Marshall, Salem, WVU Tech and West Virginia Wesleyan.
WVU also posted some photos of the facility during training this week:
It's A Gr8 Day To Be A Mountaineer @WVUSwimDive ! 1st day of yards after LC camp last week.
Divers on 3 mtr, women in 8 lane racing pool, men in 12 lane warmup/down pool. Every inch being used. #LetsGo #HailWV pic.twitter.com/j6QT3c3fj5— WVU Swim & Dive (@WVUSwimDive) October 28, 2019
Very nice!
How far away from campus?
Looks like it’s a 5.5 mile drive from the campus near downtown and maybe 3 or 4 miles from the other campus. It sucks to have to rely on a pool so far removed from campus but it seems like a really cost effective way to have a great facility. Would have been easy for a school like West Virginia, in a state with few high school swimmers and a conference with few programs that are far away, to cut the sport because they didn’t want to upgrade the facility.
Awesome to see another great facility for our sport. Can’t wait for Big 12’s!
Big 12s away from Austin – amazing!
Wow – I feel old, I enjoyed swimming in their old “new” facility when it opened in the early 70s; Also remember swimming in the pool before that – which was rumored to have been an old coal barge converted to a pool – the steel walls reverberated with the impact of every flip turn.