SANTA CLARA, Calif. (KRON) – There’s an uproar in the South Bay swimming community after the City of Santa Clara locked potential Olympic swimmers out of their pool. The pool at the International Swim Club was shut down due to alleged maintenance issues.
At a city council meeting on Tuesday, many people from the Santa Clara swim club team showed up and packed the council chambers to hear why they were locked out overnight.
They got an answer. Officials showed the terrible conditions of the International Swim Center.
Twenty-one items at the pool were not up to code. The diver tower has settlement issues. The viewing area under the deck at the dive pool shows signs of structural instability and deterioration.
Kevin Zacher runs the Santa Clara swim club. Its members have been without a proper place to train since the city shut down the pool in early January.
“It’s been tough,” Zacher said. “We have kids training out of five and six different pools, all over the place, schedules challenging, they have homework, other activities and parents are working”
A few of his young athletes are training for the Olympics, like 14-year-old Mia Su, who qualified for the 2024 trial in the 200 breaststroke. But now her training routine is totally off-track.
“It’s the same number of days but less time in the water,” she said.
The future is uncertain for the International Swim Center. The city lacks funding for the facility, but officials have to decide over the next 3-9 months to either rebuild the existing swim center or build an entire new swim center in a new location.
Young Olympic hopefuls are holding their breath that the city will find some kind of a solution.
“I hope we get our pool back so I can swim at a pool closer to me,” Su said.
The goal right now is to figure out whether certain parts of the pool can reopen. The city is planning on meeting with the swim club after Tuesday’s meeting and with hopes of finding a way to address the immediate concerns. They do not want to dash Olympic hopes before they address what to do with the pool long-term
