I’ve started actively reading the Danish news. Partly, I am thirsty for news and the Danish version is like a calming balm when compared to the rancor of American news. At the end of last week, the Danish government unveiled a four phase plan for “re-opening” of the country.
They already brought schools for young children back nearly a month ago, without any significant impact on the health system of the country. A shockingly low number of people are currently in the ICU. Things seem to be going well, inspirationally well.
But in the world of swimming, there was bad news in the re-opening plan. In a country where 99% of the facilities are public, swimming pools were pushed to the final phase of re-opening. It will be August before your average Danish competitive swimmer is allowed to train again, at the earliest.
There is considerable frustration in the Danish swimming community about this. When people ask me what it was like to live in Denmark, I tell them it was 50% amazing and 50% the most frustrating experience of my life. This decision perfectly encapsulates both.
Swimming Pools Are Huge
One thing critical to understanding this issue is that Denmark has a wealth of facilities that are accessible to the public. As mentioned, nearly every pool is open to the public, even the one where the National Training Center is located. Lap swimmers in their 80s train one lane away from Olympic gold medalist Pernille Blume.
I worked at the pool in a Danish county (Gentofte) that had about 70k residents. The pool was open the public all day long, and there was programming in it from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Put simply, the pool probably had thousands of people come through it every day.
The pools were also much stricter about hygiene than any American facility I had worked in. Every person using the pool was required to shower and fully soap down their body BEFORE entering the pool. If you failed to do this once, you got a stern warning. On your second offense you would be banned from using the pool.
This focus on hygiene though was not enough in the time of Corona, and most likely the basis of delaying the opening of pools for such a long time. Government bureaucrats naturally looked at pools and decided it was definitely a bad idea to open something where thousands of people came through every day.
It was typical for a lot of what happened at a pool to be kind of a free for all as well, with people packed into areas playing around, while lap swimmers made futile attempts to swim around them in unroped lanes.
Swimming is order
In comparison to the general public, however, swimming teams use pools in a fairly orderly fashion. That is there chief objection to the delayed opening. They could easily, in the time between now and August, enforce limits on the number of swimmers that come through, keep them distanced in the water, and enforce strict hygiene measures.
But so far, they’re not being given that chance. There is, however, one more wrinkle that makes the Danish decision even more frustrating for clubs.
Each and every club has a wide range of swimming opportunity within it, from water exercise to high subsidized swimming lessons. Put simply, nearly every person in the country has the opportunity to learn how to swim.
That’s quite important in a country with 8000km of coast line, especially one where families typically take long summer vacations. While those vacations are typically spent outside of Denmark, Danes are likely facing the prospect of “stay-cations” or vacations within the country this summer. Many kids and families will be hanging out by Denmark’s coastline. Many will not be as swimming safe as they could be.
Things Could Actually Change
I really have no idea whether this decision will be modified. In the category of “wonderful”, I expect that there will be robust public debate about it and that politicians will here about some of the intricacies.
On the side of “frustrating”, a certain Scandinavian stubbornness may set in with those same politicians. They may dig in even deeper on their already flawed decision, and that would be a shame.
Let’s see what happens, check back to this space for an update if the Danes reverse course on opening pools.