She claimed many others she spoke with at the event experienced similar symptoms, ranging in severity.
“I would like Swimming NZ to undertake a full independent review that establishes what happened and seek unequivocal assurances that the issue will not reoccur,” she said.
Another parent of a competitor, who also wished to remain anonymous, said her son was forced to withdraw from the competition before the end and seek medical attention after experiencing symptoms.
“I knew there was something up with the air quality. Everyone was talking about it, but nothing was done,” she said.
“No one took accountability. It would have been better to miss a session and have the problem fixed.”
Willy Benson, head coach of the Heretaunga Sundevils and 2008 Beijing Olympian, said the “air quality issues” were “crappy timing” and made conditions “pretty uncomfortable for a couple of days”, but the incident did not shake his own confidence in the venue.
“I’m there day in, day out,” Benson said.
“[But] they will have a bit of work to do to prove they can do events on that scale again.”
In a late-Wednesday statement, facilities management said it was unfortunate the Apollo New Zealand short-course swimming championships were disrupted due to technical issues with air quality.
Competitors and spectators raised concerns on Thursday evening about the air issues in the pool hall, and staff maximised the flow of fresh air into the hall in an effort to improve conditions, the statement said.
“This improved the airflow somewhat, but unfortunately some swimmers had already become symptomatic,” it said.
“Our air conditioning technicians quickly identified the issue,” it said, adding a sensor that measures air quality within the air conditioning unit had failed, meaning airflow into the hall was not adequate for the number of people present.
“We are really disappointed for the disruption it caused to a national event and for many competitors that had trained incredibly hard for the event,” it said.
”We have a world-class facility that Swimming New Zealand is committed to hosting national events at and we will be making every effort to ensure that events as well as regular day-to-day operations aren’t impacted in the future.”
Technical experts recommended installing a second air probe as a back-up, and other measures considered are lowering the threshold during events, so fresh air is maximised as much as possible without changing the water temperature; creating a warm-up and stretching area for athletes separate from the main pool hall; and sharing data on water/air quality in the build-up to and during events.
On its website, Swimming NZ says: “We acknowledge that the air quality in the venue was not up to standard during the event.”
It says it noted the problem in an in-venue announcement on Friday and that during the event, the venue took steps to improve the situation and “has been working alongside experts in reviewing their processes to ensure this situation doesn’t reoccur”.
“The venue wants to apologise for the air quality during the event and reassure the community that it will be ready to host future events in Hawke’s Bay,” it said.
Despite the issues, a considerable number of open and age-group records were broken.
The facilities at the Mitre 10 Sports Park opened in September 2022 and in April hosted the national age-group championships with 440 competitors, which was part of a four-event package over the next year.
They were followed by last week’s championships, which featured such athletes as recent world champs bronze medallist Fairweather, and the first open New Zealand Swimming Championships to be held in Hawke’s Bay will be hosted at the complex on April 9-13 next year, followed a few days later by the 2024 age-group championships.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
