Pool: Sweden - Malmo Pool
Grade: A
The Good: Atmosphere, tradition and interest
The Ugly: Competition pool walls and salty water
Reflections: This is a great pool. It has a 25m-competition pool, a 50m training pool, an indoor play pool linked by a canal to an outdoor play pool. A great swimming experience is to swim in the play pool and swim out to the outdoor pool in the middle of winter with heavy snow falling all around. I remember watching a well-known Australian swimmer who had never seen snow before swim around the outdoor pool one night in awe at the beauty of it all. The racing pool is all atmosphere. There is a big grandstand build right alongside the pool. The noise level hurts. A special feature of the Malmo world cup was the tradition of plunging the whole competition pool into blackness at the end of each race, picking out the winner with a tiny beam of light and increasing the beams size until the whole pool was brightly lit again. Some swimmers hate the outside lanes because the walls are unusually high. As is everything in Sweden, the place is spotless.

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