Whatever happened to ... the Beach swimming pool that was closed to add a half-inch?

Virginia BeacH

Swimmers lined up Friday morning for the reopening of the pool at the Princess Anne Recreation Center.

It had been shuttered for seven weeks so construction crews could add a vital half-inch to every kick-turn.

In 2003, 10 national competitive swimming records were invalidated after an official with the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association questioned the pool's 25-meter length.

Twenty-eight swimmers who qualified as All-Americans also lost their status.

"Normally, when you have a national record set, if you have one, that's a lot," the official, Bob White Sr., said at the time. "The minute I saw eight of them I thought, 'Whoa, wait a minute.' "

State requirements for swimming championships require competition pools to be at least 25 meters long.

In the months after the meet, the pool was measured various ways and found to be short by a half-inch in one lane and 3/16ths of an inch in another lane.

When it was built in 1994, state championship regulations were not considered, the city engineer said.

For a while, the city switched swim meets to the pool at the Bayside Recreation Center, which did measure 25 meters, but that facility became overused, said Teri Dalone, the city's aquatics coordinator.

For about $30,000, a city contractor moved the wall at the shallow end of all eight lanes at Princess Anne. It now officially measures 25.004 meters, she said.

Tom Dolan, co-director of athletics for the Virginia High School League, said it would be nice to get the pool back into the rotation of locations for competitions.

"It's a good facility," he said. "Well run."

The length of the lanes was the only reason the league couldn't use it, he said.

Dalone said the city might eventually be able to recoup the cost of the fix through rental fees and tourist dollars from swim meets. "People are just thrilled to have their pool back," she added.

Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com