Canadian swimmers have unique relationship with training pool
The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre has two, 10-lane Olympic pools
By Callum Ng, CBC Sports
Michelle Williams is so used to smelling like chlorine, from 20 hours a week immersed in the pool, she doesn't even notice it anymore.
The smell, clean and similar to bleach, is as familiar as the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre where the Olympic freestyler spends the bulk of her days.
"I think I'm de-sensitized to it, I don't really notice the smell anymore, I think it's because it's in my skin and it's just there all the time," she said.
Williams admits there are worse sport smells. "For other people who aren't around it that much they always notice that smell."
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Williams is 25-years-old and stacked with muscle. Her best event is the 50-metres free, swimming's shortest race. It takes her 24-seconds.
To earn that speed she spends 30 hours per week swimming, lifting, eating, and recovering at her home pool.
The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC for short) is another expansive, modern venue built for the 2015 Pan Am Games. The place was deafening for Canadian athletes competing in synchronized swimming, diving, and swimming last July.
Today it is airy and well-lit thanks to the Pan Am stands being replaced by rows of tall windows. It has two 10-lane pools, a rarity worldwide. The Canadian Sport Institute Ontario has taken up a large section of the building for a supreme weight room, an athlete lounge, kitchen, and recovery tools that look like space machines.
But William's coach, Olympic head Ben Titley, insists "It isn't so much about the bricks and mortar it's very much about the people and the culture and the attitude," he said. "It's obviously a fabulous facility."
Titley also coaches the remainder of Canada's 4 x 100 freestyle relay team in Penny Oleksiak, Chantal Van Landeghem, and Sandrine Mainville, considered to be the women's best shot at a medal in Rio.
"A performance mentality is one that has to be flexible, there has to be a plan but it has to be almost like guerilla warfare, there has to be an ability to change and to move with whatever is needed at a given time," said Titley.
His practices are orchestrated to the minute, using every inch of the deck, multiple sport scientists, and adapted training tools like snorkels.
As large as a pool may be, a swimmer experiences only a sliver at a time. "If it's a really hard set you become so much in the zone that everything around you just fades away," said Williams, who has been training at TPASC since October of 2014.
The Olympic swim meet begins Aug. 6 at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.