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Monday, July 7, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

SWIMMING
From Page 11
The competition pool at the
Qwest Center was 50 meters long,
10 lanes wide, three meters deep,
held one million gallons of water
and weighed approximately eight
million pounds. The warm-up pool

was even larger.
The pools were manufactured
and constructed by Myrtha Pools.
Once the parts were delivered to
the Qwest Center from Myrtha's
factory in Genoa, Italy, the compe-
tition pool was constructed on the
floor of the arena and the warm-
up pool was built in the conven-
tion center over the course of eight

days. The pool parts were delivered
in six containers, each weighing
30,000 pounds, by six semi-trailer
trucks. The project required more
than 200,000 bolts and 1,947 feet of
pipes between the two pools. Both
pools were filled by the Omaha Fire
Department, and the water was
kept between 80 and 81 degrees.
After the meet is over, the pool will


be taken apart and sold for reuse by Typically during the Olympics,
other facilities. the preliminary swim races and
WORKING WEST: Just one day gymnastics events are held in the
after the U.S. Olympic swimming morning and the finals of each
trials ended, the 43 swimmers who event are held at night. This year,
qualified for the however, the pre-
2008 U.S. Olympic liminary races
team flew today Thei s ,.m . and events will
from OmahatoPalo The s be held at night
Alto, Calif., where and the finals of
they will train as each will be held
a team at Stan- will beheld ing "the morning.
ford University This change was
for the nextthree 9-18. made with Ameri-
weeks. After can TV viewers
their -,domestic in mind. Because
training camp of the time dif-
ends July 25, the ference between
Olympic team will fly to Japan China and the United States, hav-
and conduct an Asian training ing the swimming and gymnastics
camp before finally arriving in finals in the morning will allow
China. The Beijing Games begin these sports to be broadcast live
Aug. 8, and the swimming com- during prime time in the United
petitions will be held Aug. 9-18. States.


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