Canada's Olympic hopefuls forced to make do without Montreal training facility

CBC News

· Posted: Apr 04, 2024 5:14 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

A major sports training complex in Montreal's Olympic Park is going to be closed longer than initially forecast after a devastating fire, and that means Olympians and Paralympians will need to train for the Paris games elsewhere.

And the upcoming Paralympic and Olympic national trials, slated for Montreal's Olympic pool for May 13 to 19, will need to be held at a new location.

The Olympic Park revealed Wednesday that the athletic sports complex will remain closed for a period of four to six months due to a fire on March 21.

Swimming Canada aims to maintain the same dates for the national trials and is actively seeking an alternate location within the Montreal area. 

The selected venue must possess a 50-metre pool, sufficient capacity for both participants and spectators, and facilitate the broadcasting of the event.

In the upcoming days, the governing body will convene with key partners to determine the subsequent actions and it expects to share a comprehensive plan by next week.

Meanwhile, the head of the Quebec swimming federation is hastening to find a backup training venue.

Francis Ménard said the timing is difficult for the athletes — it's the final stretch before the Olympics when they should just be focused on performing well rather than worrying about changing locations.

Among those displaced is the national artistic swimming team. Athletes from that team are using the pool at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal.

"It's crunch time right now as we prepare for the Olympics," said Kerri Morgan, Canada Artistic Swimming's chief sports officer. 

She described the situation as a "scrambled mess."

WATCH | Displaced by fire, artistic swimmers show their resilience: 

"We're taking water whenever we can get it. We're starting earlier some days. We're starting later some days. We have more time some days. We have less time some days."

Quebec City native Laurianne Imbeau has been on the team for two years.

"We're a team that's really good at adapting to different kinds of situations," she said. "So that's a good thing for us."

She said competitions are held at different pools and it's important to be able to adapt, but it is unfortunate to not be training at the National Sports Institute (INS) in the Olympic Stadium.

"That's a beautiful place to be," she said. "That's something that's hard."

Her teammate, Jacqueline Simoneau, said the situation isn't ideal, but "we're a resilient team." 

The pool dimensions — length, width and depth — are noticeably smaller, and that's creating a challenge, she said.

Judges include how many metres the team moves around the pool in their scoring decisions, she explained.

"So here, we have a smaller pool, we'll be training by moving less," she said. "When it comes time for the Olympics, we will need to be able to push that extra mile, which we're not used to doing here."

Simoneau said it's better to train in an environment that fully represents what they will encounter in competition.