A Russian football stadium is being
temporarily transformed into an aquatics
venue - with two Olympic-size swimming
pools being built on the pitch.
The Kazan Arena usually hosts Russian premier
league matches, but for two weeks this summer
it will be home to swimming and synchronised
swimming events during the World Aquatics
Championships. As well as the pair of 50m pools,
a temporary roof now adorns the stadium and
viewing platforms for about 11,000 people have
been constructed inside, the Tass news
agency reports.
Kazan already has another swimming venue -
the Aquatics Palace, completed in 2013 - but
organisers say adapting the football stadium has
extra benefits. "We can get more people in here,
the facilities are better, we can use the stadium's
skyboxes and VIP areas, and well, we wanted to
be creative," says Ranko Tepavcevic from the
International Swimming Federation. He tells Tass
that it was also more cost effective than building a
whole new facility.
While it's not unusual to see a football pitch
ringed by an athletics track, it's unlikely that many
others have doubled as aquatics centres. The
arena's deputy CEO, Vadims Andrejevs, says he
recently spoke to representatives from the
London's Wembley and Emirates stadiums,
which have hosted concerts and other events. "I
asked them: 'But have you built two swimming
pools in your stadium?' Of course they hadn't."
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