Northland's elite swimmers may still be stuck in a short course pool but, if the Kamo Swimming Club's meet on Saturday was anything to go by, the new Whangarei Aquatic Centre is anything but a flop.
In the "bad old days" a swim meet meant the pool had to be closed
to the public. But on Saturday, 175 swimmers from as far away as Kaitaia and Auckland, competed seamlessly a short distance away from the busy new part of the complex, with its hydroslides, wavepools and selection of smaller pools.
The meeting director and Kamo Swimming Club vice-president Kim McCahon said her personal opinion was that the new part of the pool was great for the community.
"They've done a great job with it and I wish them every success, let's hope that they attract the numbers they're hoping for, that would be great and might even have a positive effect on the area's swimming clubs," she said.
"But let's hope the next thing they do is add a 50m pool to the complex, it would be fantastic to have one here," McCahon added.
Most of the swimmers and the dozens of parents and volunteers who helped run the event would have agreed wholeheartedly with that sentiment but then swimmers are a patient lot.
McCahon said progress had already been made, with the new arrangements already benefiting the area's most frequent swimmers.
"Before the new pool was completed, clubs were given limited space and time to train, but now that's opened up a little bit and I think they're still working on getting the right balance for the clubs," she said.
"It's been a bit of a learning time for them (the centre's management) and they've been experimenting with different structures to give more lane time to the different clubs that use the pool and things will possibly change more as time goes on. But for now you've just got to take what you can get."
The Kamo Club meet is one of the biggest club meets on the Northland calendar and precedes the Northland Age Group Championships in January.
