At the Paris Olympics, athletes will swim in Italian pools

The world of sports facilities is a special and particularly complex one. In this context, Piscine Castiglione celebrates its sixth Olympics by playing a key role in the Paris 2024 edition with its Myrtha Pools brand, a combination of high quality, innovative technology, and sustainability. For the French Olympics, Piscine Castiglione has installed 24 modular stainless steel pools, including 3 temporary and 21 permanent ones, which will be used for all Olympic aquatic disciplines. Additionally, about 80% of the materials used in the Olympic pools will be reused after the event, including structural elements, accessories, and the water treatment system, which consists of filtration and chlorination.

The Olympic Aquatic Center pool—the only permanent sports facility built for the Paris 2024 Games, along with the Climbing Wall in Le Bourget—will be used for diving, water polo, and synchronized swimming events. It has been specially designed by Piscine Castiglione’s engineering team to ensure maximum modularity for all disciplines and future uses. Made of stainless steel, the pool—with its 70 meters in length and 25 meters in width—is the largest of its kind in France and Europe. Thanks to two movable bridges, it can be configured into five 25-meter pools, a single 50-meter pool, three smaller 25-meter pools, or a single 33-meter pool suitable for water polo.

Piscine Castiglione's continuous technological research in the field of sustainable modularity and long-term reuse of structures, even in the post-Olympic phase, has led to equipping a section of a 25 x 12.5-meter pool with a movable floor, allowing the depth of the pool to be adjusted. For example, the floor can be raised to 1.30 meters for aquabike, to 1.50 meters for swimming lessons, or to 2 meters at the deepest point for swimming competitions. Essentially, it is like having ten pools in one. The pool floor is also distributed across different levels: instead of offering a single depth of 5 meters (which is required for diving), the depths are adapted according to the disciplines, thereby saving water, reducing heating, and facilitating management. After the Games, the Olympic Aquatic Centre will become the largest training center for diving in France, and in 2026, it will once again host the European Swimming Championships.

Opening image: courtesy of Piscine Castiglione.