The six week additional closure of Commonwealth has left some Vikes swimmers in the deep end
Illustration by Sage Blackwell.
On Sept. 11, the Saanich Commonwealth Pool announced that “deficiencies” required the competition pool’s opening to be delayed by up to six more weeks than initially anticipated.
The pool previously announced a reopening date of Sept. 15 for the competition pool, after its closure for “annual maintenance” was announced on Aug. 28.
The south side of the aquatic facility (the wave, teach, tots, and dive pools, as well as the hot tub, sauna, and steam room) are expected to reopen on Oct. 27.
The Vikes Swim teams, both of which train in the Saanich Commonwealth Pool, are now without a main pool to train in. According to an anonymous source, the Vikes were using the Crystal Pool during Commonwealth’s initial maintenance period, until the extended closure was announced.
As a temporary solution, swim team members have been given a one month pass to all the different facilities in Victoria. However, with the loss of now three pools across Victoria (McKinnon, Saanich Commonwealth, and the YMCA), both students and community members are beginning to feel the strain.
A concerned parent of a Vikes swimmer, who asked to remain anonymous, said in a statement to the Martlet that “we have seen recent closures of pools and varsity teams at other post secondary schools such as University of Alberta and Acadia Pool in the Maritimes. That has a trickle down effect to the younger kids in the community.”
“It would be sad to see McKinnon and UVIC follow the same path. Our youth need more opportunities to be active and social, which swimming provides,” they said.
According to a Vikes swimmer, who also asked to remain anonymous, a typical season includes nine practices a week that are about two hours each, all in water, supervised by a coach.
“Currently, we’re only able to get two practices supervised [by a coach],” they said, “so we only have about three to four hours — if it [works] with our schedules as well — with coach supervision. If not, we’re swimming over 12 hours on our own.”
The Vikes swim team is making up for lost pool time with “dryland training,” multiple times a week, which includes extra weight training and spin classes to maintain the swimmers’ condition. Maintaining peak training condition feels especially crucial for the team as their championship meet, Canada West (CanWest), approaches on Nov. 28-30.
Sources on the Vikes swim team spoke highly of their coaches, and of the effort put into maintaining a sense of normalcy during this unusual season. Despite CanWest being under two months away, it’s still early to tell if team members feel prepared or not.
According to another anonymous source on the team, the fractured training has “completely removed the team dynamic from being on the varsity team, which is the best part of being on a varsity team.”
“None of us love swimming enough to do it without each other, and we have nobody now,” they said.
One swimmer said “it hasn’t really felt like we know where everyone’s at,” because “everyone is so scattered” due to the impacts that pool closures have had on training.
On top of disconnection, there’s also been reports of minor harassment against the swim team from community members. “There’s been a few reported incidents,” said one source. “I personally, have never had any issues yet with anybody, but there’s lots … cases where people have been [accosted], whether it’s just a snarky comment, or one incident that I heard about at Gordon Head, with somebody verbally berating somebody.”
Positive interactions with the broader Victoria community still do occur, the sources said, and many community members are understanding of the situation. “About 80 per cent of the interactions we have are quite positive and understanding, and sometimes it’s even really good because there’s a lot of people who [hear] our story, and hear what we’re experiencing, and gain a new supporter,” said one swimmer.
“Maybe they’ll write a letter to UVic, or to the City of Victoria,” they said.
Another difficulty facing the team is that, while pools are available, that doesn’t guarantee they are suitable for varsity training. “We also have a lot of recreation centres, and not a lot of pools that we can train at,” one swimmer said. “So Commonwealth is great, because it’s 50 meters, you can split it up seven ways to Sunday, but you look at something like Gordon Head, and we’re like filing our nails at the bottom because it’s so shallow at one side.”
The sense of frustration from team members is palpable. “It’s the same thing with Commonwealth closing for six weeks, it’s the same thing with all of these other facilities,” said the other swimmer. “They make decisions without consulting anybody, and there’s no community involvement, and we’re like, these facilities are built for us, they’re built for the community, and if somebody can decide to shut it down on their own whim instantly, who’s this facility for?”
