A swimming pool which will serve as a training location for water polo teams during the Paris Olympics (July 26-August 11), was inaugurated Tuesday in La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis) and will be part of the heritage in this poorest department in France. This complex, named after the Australian swimmer Annette Kellermann, is 4,600 square meters, including 1,600 square meters of water including a competition pool (8 water lanes) but also swimming learning pools and play areas. and well-being.
It will be open to schools from April and will then serve in particular as a training site for water polo teams for the Paris Olympics. Outside, pitches will be used for rugby sevens. It will open to all audiences at the start of the 2024 school year. This equipment is one of the four new swimming pools in the department with those of Aulnay-sous-Bois, Aubervilliers and the Olympic aquatic center of Saint-Denis.
“We are going to go from 60,000 entries in the old swimming pool (at La Courneuve, Editor’s note) to 300,000 entries in this new swimming pool,” welcomed the president of the department alongside in particular the president of the Île-de-France region. , Valérie Pécresse, and the president of the metropolis Patrick Ollier. “Annette Kellermann invented the first swimsuit for women that allowed them to swim freely,” he recalled, referring to this pioneering sportswoman born in 1886.
The Seine-Saint-Denis department is under-equipped with aquatic facilities, with 60 square meters of pool per 10,000 inhabitants, compared to 160 meters in the Île-de-France region and 260 square meters nationally. One in two children entering middle school cannot swim in this department.
