Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that? Will?
Speaker 2: So I was looking through the National Register of Historic Places,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was doing this on a Saturday,
Speaker 2: because that's how I spend most of my saturdays these days.
Speaker 2: And I noticed that there's actually only one swimming pool
Speaker 2: on the list. One swimming pool in all the National
Speaker 2: Register of Historic Places.
Speaker 1: Well, I love that, that's how you spend your Saturdays.
Speaker 1: But there's only one swimming pool.
Speaker 2: On a very special swimming pool. This is the Venetian Pool,
Speaker 2: and it's located in Coral Gables, Florida, and it was
Speaker 2: built on this abandoned rock quarry. Now the pool is
Speaker 2: the largest freshwater pool in the entire country. And when
Speaker 2: it was first built, it was made to look like
Speaker 2: a Venetian grotto, so this really lush pool. It was
Speaker 2: equipped with places to dock your gondola. Of course, they
Speaker 2: actually used to have gondolas that would ride across it.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding. You should look for the photos of this.
Speaker 2: But the really impressive feature is that to keep the
Speaker 2: water fresh, it was drained every single day and then
Speaker 2: filled with fresh water from the artesian springs that it
Speaker 2: connects to, and I'm not making that up either. That
Speaker 2: is incredible, but also it kind of seems like a
Speaker 2: lot of water. Yeah, so you can imagine some conservationists
Speaker 2: took issue with this, and when they pointed that out,
Speaker 2: the system was changed a little bit. So today the
Speaker 2: water pumps out to an aquifer where the water is
Speaker 2: cleaned and then pumped back in, so the water is
Speaker 2: still changed very regularly. But what's incredible is that because
Speaker 2: the quarry gets emptied out, they can also use it
Speaker 2: for other events, like apparently the quarry has stunning acoustics,
Speaker 2: so symphonies will perform concerts from the bottom for its locals.
Speaker 2: I think I'd probably be nervous that it was suddenly
Speaker 2: going to start filling up again. But anyway, I put
Speaker 2: it on my list of places to visit the next
Speaker 2: time I'm in Florida because it's actually open to the
Speaker 2: public and it looks beautiful. Plus the idea of fresh
Speaker 2: swimming seems like a lot of fun, and especially in
Speaker 2: such a huge pool. But reading about the Venetian made
Speaker 2: me wonder where swimming pools got their start and how
Speaker 2: they spread across America. And also who the Zanius swim
Speaker 2: team in New York history is. You know that's an
Speaker 2: obvious next one.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that sentence means, but I
Speaker 1: love it. And usually i'd say, let's dive in, but
Speaker 1: I don't think we're gonna be that elegant, so let's
Speaker 1: get into it with a great big belly flop.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson, and as always I'm here with my good
Speaker 2: friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and somewhere behind the big booth,
Speaker 2: sitting in an inner tube in a kiddie pool with
Speaker 2: floaties on each of his arms. I saw these things
Speaker 2: sitting around the office all week. I had a feeling
Speaker 2: this is where he was going with it. That's our
Speaker 2: good friend Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: You know what's amazing about it is like that's not
Speaker 1: even half the work he put into this. Like I
Speaker 1: don't know if you notice, but he has posters up
Speaker 1: everywhere of all these great movies from like Ferris Bueller,
Speaker 1: The Sand Loot, The Graduate Rushmore, National Lampoon's Vacation. And
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it, but.
Speaker 2: You know, they all have a famous swimming pool. Scenes. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: that's true. Good catch.
Speaker 1: There is a genius.
Speaker 2: He really is a genius.
Speaker 1: So will I know you are a good swimmer. I'm
Speaker 1: a terrible swimmer. I grew up near a y, so
Speaker 1: like I went to lessons there, I was a polywog,
Speaker 1: and then a guppy, and then a minnow and a fish,
Speaker 1: and I was just like crushing these levels one after another.
Speaker 1: And then I just grew older and older and I
Speaker 1: never got promoted to flying fish and heartbreaking and eventually
Speaker 1: I quit. But in spite of all that resentment, I
Speaker 1: I still love swimming pool.
Speaker 2: I'm the same way I love a swimming pool, but
Speaker 2: I sort of just like being in it, you know,
Speaker 2: like not working really hard. And I'm not swimmings. I'm
Speaker 2: not a great swimmer. But so anyway, why don't you
Speaker 2: kick this off and tell us about the first swimming pool,
Speaker 2: which I know you look the into.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. People have been swimming in lakes and rivers
Speaker 1: and other bodies of water for thousands and thousands of years.
Speaker 1: But to get to what is possibly the earliest evidence
Speaker 1: of a pool, we have to go to circa twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred BCE. And this takes us to the Indus
Speaker 1: Valley in modern day Pakistan. In the nineteen twenties, archaeologists
Speaker 1: were excavating Mohenjo Daro, which is one of two main
Speaker 1: Indus civilization settlements, and they came across this structure and
Speaker 1: it is really impressive. It looks like a pool about
Speaker 1: eight feet deep and is built of brick, and it
Speaker 1: has drainage, a bunch of benches, and even this terraced
Speaker 1: deck area. Honestly, it's not that different from the baths today.
Speaker 1: But you said wasn't for swimming, that's right. So the
Speaker 1: exact use is unknown, but historians think it was likely
Speaker 1: a bath used for religious ceremonies. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: the first known example of a pool. But we're going
Speaker 1: to zoom ahead about two thousand years to ancient Rome,
Speaker 1: where public baths were really popular. Before this time there
Speaker 1: had been bathing in pools and swimming in open water.
Speaker 1: But we can credit the Romans with building pools explicitly
Speaker 1: for military training.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's super interesting. But somehow I hadn't put it
Speaker 2: together that they'd be teaching soldiers to blow bubbles underwater
Speaker 2: and showing them like the elementary backstroke and all that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the idea of Roman soldiers doing aqua aerobics
Speaker 1: together and full regalia is pretty fun to think about it.
Speaker 1: But also you can credit the wealthy Roman diplomat patriot
Speaker 1: of the arts and leisure enthusiast Gaeus Macenus for likely
Speaker 1: having the first heated swimming pool, which he built in
Speaker 1: the first century BCE.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing that heated swimming pools go back that far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first sense of Britannica about geis is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: It reads quote gayas Messinas was a Roman diplomat, counselor
Speaker 1: to the Roman Emperor Augustus, and wealthy patron of such
Speaker 1: poets as Virgil and Horrus. He was criticized for his
Speaker 1: luxurious way of life.
Speaker 2: I love that. It's right there in the opener. All right,
Speaker 2: so I'm digging this quick tour through the early swimming
Speaker 2: pools that actually is super interesting. But what's next.
Speaker 1: So as the centuries go on, swimming in bats especially
Speaker 1: bats continue to be really popular, right, So you think
Speaker 1: about the onsen in Japan, the Hammams in Turkey, the
Speaker 1: Banyas in Russia. It just goes on around the world,
Speaker 1: and in Europe, the popularity of swimming really dips during
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, possibly because people were worried that it
Speaker 1: spread infections. But by eighteen thirty seven, the very beginning
Speaker 1: of Victorian England, there were six indoor pools with diving
Speaker 1: boards in London. Isn't it amazing? Yeah? And it's the
Speaker 1: Victorian era that really ends up ushering in the idea
Speaker 1: of swimming as both a sport and a leisure activity.
Speaker 1: You start to see swimming clubs and organized races and
Speaker 1: this starts spreading across Europe and eventually into places like
Speaker 1: Australia and America.
Speaker 2: All Right, so when do pools, you know, finally take
Speaker 2: over America.
Speaker 1: So there's this great book called Contested Water, a Social
Speaker 1: History of Swimming in America, and a lot of this
Speaker 1: research comes from there. But according to Jeff Wiltsey, the
Speaker 1: first public pool in the US was built in Boston,
Speaker 1: and this is around eighteen sixty eight, so just a
Speaker 1: few years after the Civil War had ended. For context,
Speaker 1: then it was an indoor pool called a Cabot Street Bath,
Speaker 1: and unlike those fancy pools with diving boards in London,
Speaker 1: this one was as the name suggests really supposed to
Speaker 1: be a bath. A lot of working class folks didn't
Speaker 1: have a way to bathe themselves, so the pool was
Speaker 1: really a substitute for that. You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I don't like thinking about
Speaker 2: is what the water must have looked like in pools
Speaker 2: like this. I mean for real, Yeah, I know, it.
Speaker 1: Was so gross, and it was pre chlorine, so you
Speaker 1: have to imagine it's pretty disgusting. But you know, the
Speaker 1: attempt in the US to use chlorine to clean a
Speaker 1: pool wasn't until nineteen ten, so that was really a
Speaker 1: ways away. But Wilsee said he came across reports that
Speaker 1: knowed the water in these early public baths needed to
Speaker 1: be changed about once a week.
Speaker 2: It also feels like way too long. I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm just being a clean freak here, but I
Speaker 2: feel like it would just abstain from public.
Speaker 1: Baths, yeah, I mean, actually, our researcher MARSSA. Brown threw
Speaker 1: in this TLC joke here that we should just stick
Speaker 1: to the rivers and the lace that you used to.
Speaker 2: That's actually the appropriate use. That's well done.
Speaker 1: And the truth is that even though these public baths
Speaker 1: were popping up in the US, people were swimming in
Speaker 1: fresh water or freshish water. So like if you think
Speaker 1: about New York City, for example, there had been free
Speaker 1: public floating bats in the Hudson and the East River,
Speaker 1: and this was starting in eighteen seventy. They were almost
Speaker 1: one hundred feet long and the deepest they got was
Speaker 1: about four point five.
Speaker 2: Feet, So people were actually bathing in the East River.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for a while in the night eighteen twenties, the
Speaker 1: city finally realized the river water maybe wasn't the cleanest,
Speaker 1: and the floating baths eventually went away.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such a cool idea, and I know
Speaker 2: they have these floating pools and lakes and oceans in
Speaker 2: other parts of the world, but I guess if you're
Speaker 2: swimming in the East River, it was probably for the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It reminds me of that Seinfeld where
Speaker 1: Kramer starts swimming in the East River because he says
Speaker 1: the pool is too constrictive for his knees. It was
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. But back to pools. So the first public
Speaker 1: outdoor pool in the US that Jeff Wiltsey could find
Speaker 1: was in Philadelphia, and it opens in the summer of
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three, and again it was meant to be
Speaker 1: used for body cleaning purposes.
Speaker 2: And do you know why they kept building these pools
Speaker 2: for bathing in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean part of the reason was really kind
Speaker 1: of classiest, Like you have these working class boys, they
Speaker 1: jump into open water naked, like they're not genteel. So
Speaker 1: they're often splashing about in lakes and rivers and water
Speaker 1: near buildings, and they're having a good time and they're
Speaker 1: often being rampunctious. So part of the idea was, let's
Speaker 1: just get them swimming and playing and bathing in an
Speaker 1: enclosed area so the public doesn't have to see all
Speaker 1: all these people bathing in cities.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't so much this public service or good,
Speaker 2: but more something to keep the supposed lower classes from
Speaker 2: being an eyesore I guess exactly.
Speaker 1: And showers were only added later in sort of like
Speaker 1: the mid to late eighteen nineties. So this was around
Speaker 1: the time when the idea that water could actually transmit
Speaker 1: invisible diseases through microbes became more accepted. But this is
Speaker 1: when you start to see the real change. And after this,
Speaker 1: the pool started to become less of a bathhouse and
Speaker 1: more of a recreation area. So by eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: Philly had nine public pools, and on average, each of
Speaker 1: these accommodated about fifteen hundred swimmers a day during the summer.
Speaker 2: That is a lot of people, you know. One of
Speaker 2: the craziest facts I read was that in nineteen thirteen
Speaker 2: the Fairgrounds Park in Saint Louis opened and it was
Speaker 2: huge and circular. We're talking four hundred feet in diameter,
Speaker 2: and apparently one Sunday, pretty soon after it opened, fifty
Speaker 2: thousand people came to visit, and twenty five thousand to swim,
Speaker 2: another twenty five thousand to watch. That's another pool I'm
Speaker 2: not getting in.
Speaker 1: Twenty five thousand people came just to spectate. That's insane, yes,
Speaker 1: but obviously it was a trend, right. So like during
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties through the forties, cities around the entire
Speaker 1: country started building megapools, and some of them were bigger
Speaker 1: than football fields and had sandy beaches, some of them
Speaker 1: had grassy lawns, and some of them came with concrete
Speaker 1: decks to sunbathe on. And get this. So, the Fleischhacker
Speaker 1: Pool in San Francisco, which opened in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: was one thousand feet long, one hundred and fifty feet wide.
Speaker 1: Ten thousand people could swim at once, and lifeguards used
Speaker 1: wooden rowboats to get across. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Also, it was filled with seawater and it was heated
Speaker 1: to between sixty five and seven five degrees.
Speaker 2: Okay, now that sounds delightful. Actually, we should make a visit.
Speaker 1: I mean, unfortunately it's been closed since the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: and now it is a parking lot for the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Zoo.
Speaker 2: But okay, well, we should make a visit. I like
Speaker 2: parking lots.
Speaker 1: In its original form, it's still considered the largest ever
Speaker 1: landlocked pool.
Speaker 2: And so what was driving all this swimming pool madness?
Speaker 2: Like why were so many of these getting built at
Speaker 2: the time?
Speaker 1: The New Deal is part of the reason. Like that
Speaker 1: became pretty instrumental in the public pool explosion. And more
Speaker 1: than seven hundred and fifty pools were built by the
Speaker 1: federal government between nineteen thirty three and nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: and they were really popular. In nineteen thirty three, the
Speaker 1: National Recreation Association surveyed what kind of leisure activities Americans did,
Speaker 1: and apparently as many people swam frequently as went to
Speaker 1: the movies frequently.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is nice that so many of the
Speaker 2: pools at that time were open to the public, because
Speaker 2: pools were just way too expensive for most people to
Speaker 2: build on their own.
Speaker 1: Yes, so just like Gaius Marcillus, you know, private pools
Speaker 1: were definitely a sign of decadence. And William Randolph Hurst
Speaker 1: actually had two pools at his castle. He had the
Speaker 1: outdoor Neptune pool, which was complete with sculptures and a colonnade,
Speaker 1: and then there's the indoor Roman pool, which was styled
Speaker 1: after the ancient Roman bats, and it's decorated floor to
Speaker 1: ceiling with blue and orange mosaic tiles. They're both really
Speaker 1: really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Wow, just looking at this, Gayus would have been super proud.
Speaker 2: And you know, from my research, it seems like it
Speaker 2: wasn't until around the nineteen fifties that you start to
Speaker 2: see a bunch of these private backyard pools.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm guessing that's just because America is
Speaker 1: wealthier post war.
Speaker 2: That's partially it, but it's also because of new materials,
Speaker 2: Like there's something called gunnite, which is basically sprayed concrete,
Speaker 2: and so gunnite had been around since the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: and it was used to do things like line sewers
Speaker 2: and repair buildings and bridges. But in the nineteen forties
Speaker 2: and fifties, with increasing middle class salary and people living
Speaker 2: in suburban homes they have bigger yards, dun Night was
Speaker 2: a quicker and more affordable option for a personal pool.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot more to talk about modern swimming
Speaker 2: pool culture, but before we get into that, let's take
Speaker 2: a quick break. Welcome back to part time Genius, where
Speaker 2: we're talking swimming pools. So mego. I know, New York
Speaker 2: City has a great pool system. I believe it has
Speaker 2: over fifty public pools that get opened in the warmer months.
Speaker 2: But do you ever take your kids to the pools there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Definitely. I mean I'm not a swimmer, but like
Speaker 1: my kids definitely go with friends, they go to birthday parties.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same way they take advantage of
Speaker 1: the city's roller rinks or ice skating rinks. Also two
Speaker 1: other things I'm not good at.
Speaker 2: Gosh man manga, you're too hard on yourself. Well, part
Speaker 2: of the reason I was asking is have you ever
Speaker 2: heard of the aquasanes?
Speaker 1: I have not what are the Aquisanes.
Speaker 2: So the Aquasanes were a troop of boys that would
Speaker 2: go around pools and they would basically perform these like
Speaker 2: comedy and trick diving acts for people.
Speaker 1: You just sent over this picture. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Is it kind of reminds me of the people on
Speaker 1: the subway who yell showtime and then start breaking rising
Speaker 1: on the poles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty that's that's pretty much it. So picture
Speaker 2: a group of very energetic teen boys, all dressed in
Speaker 2: what seemed to be swimming outfits inspired by these old
Speaker 2: timey jail uniforms, and it's pretty crazy. There's this one
Speaker 2: video of them where they're like ten boys on a
Speaker 2: huge diving platform, leaping and flipping all at once. And
Speaker 2: another trick is where the Aquaisanes lined up one behind
Speaker 2: the other on the board just before jumping over and
Speaker 2: on top of each other as they dive in and
Speaker 2: crash into the water. So their overall vibe is sort
Speaker 2: of very loosely organized chaos.
Speaker 1: I like that, Well, were they're perform planned? Like did
Speaker 1: they you know, did they have like this choreographed routine
Speaker 1: or did they just show up and cause havoc.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like it was semi legit, I guess.
Speaker 2: And you know, their home base was Astoria. They had
Speaker 2: a coach actually, and in the nineteen forties and fifties
Speaker 2: the aqua Zanes were big. So for about a decade
Speaker 2: there was a yearly summer performance called the Aqua Show
Speaker 2: that was held in Queens. It seems like it was
Speaker 2: basically this vaudevillian, you know, type of variety show, and
Speaker 2: the acts included water ballet and a log rolling monkey
Speaker 2: named Herman. Of course his name was Herman. He was
Speaker 2: a log rolling monkey. I mean, so even ice skating,
Speaker 2: so don't don't ask me how. And of course the
Speaker 2: aqua Zanes.
Speaker 1: I love this whole culture of like aqua shows. I
Speaker 1: had never heard of any of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, So let's move out of New
Speaker 2: York City pools and travel to France, which also has
Speaker 2: some pretty interesting pool history. And unfortunately, the first part
Speaker 2: here starts with a tragedy. So we go back to
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen sixty nine and there were two
Speaker 2: separate events in France where in total, thirty three kids drowned.
Speaker 2: So obviously super sad here.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's terrible. So what happened all right?
Speaker 2: Well, one of the incidents happened on the River Lore
Speaker 2: where a lot of kids were playing and some just
Speaker 2: got swept under. And one happened when a boat with
Speaker 2: twenty four kids on it capsized and fourteen of them drown,
Speaker 2: and it really accentuated this disparity in swimming ability across
Speaker 2: the classes. But those tragedies pushed the government to place
Speaker 2: a new emphasis on teaching kids to swim and making
Speaker 2: sure that French kids had access to more swimming pools.
Speaker 2: So the government launched this project. It was a project
Speaker 2: called one Thousand Swimming Pools, where the goal was, as
Speaker 2: you can imagine, actually to build a thousand swimming pools
Speaker 2: that would be open year round.
Speaker 1: That's just good branding. I love a project title that
Speaker 1: doesn't leave you guessing.
Speaker 2: It's pretty clear what's going on there. So first they
Speaker 2: collected design ideas and ended up choosing one by the
Speaker 2: architect Bernard Shouler, and his original design was for a
Speaker 2: pool with his dome segment cover that would open up
Speaker 2: as the sun moved across the sky, which just sounds
Speaker 2: super cool. It was nicknamed Piecene Turnosil or sunflower pool
Speaker 2: because of the way sunflowers follow the sun. But when
Speaker 2: they actually looked into building it, they realized it was
Speaker 2: too expensive. Now, the thing was, they still liked the
Speaker 2: idea of the design, so they just went with a
Speaker 2: simpler variation on this. The roof was this domed and
Speaker 2: segmented structure, but only a third of it would open up,
Speaker 2: and only the south facing side of it, so it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of like a lazy sunflower in this case.
Speaker 2: It's exactly right. But people loved them. So the first
Speaker 2: went up in nineteen seventy two in a town outside
Speaker 2: of Paris, and eventually one hundred and eighty two more
Speaker 2: of these structures were built, but not a thousand. Now
Speaker 2: in total, the government actually built around six hundred swimming pools,
Speaker 2: which is still a lot of pools, and not all
Speaker 2: of them were of the sunflower variety. Other variations included
Speaker 2: the quote full sunlight, the iris, and the duckling. That
Speaker 2: people really remembered was the sunflower.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you send it across these photos
Speaker 1: and I've got to put them up for listeners to see.
Speaker 1: But they're really cool. It's like very Jetson's esque. But
Speaker 1: can you still swim in them.
Speaker 2: Well, sadly most of them are now abandoned. They actually
Speaker 2: ended up being pretty expensive to maintain, and that plastic
Speaker 2: exterior didn't do well in the elements. But there's still
Speaker 2: some around and some that even still function as pools.
Speaker 2: There's actually an Instagram account called le fair tonasoul and
Speaker 2: that documents many of them, and it's actually pretty cool
Speaker 2: to look at.
Speaker 1: I love that. So what's our next stop on this tour?
Speaker 2: All right, well, sticking with France, Actually, have you heard
Speaker 2: about this controversy surrounding the twenty twenty four Olympic pool?
Speaker 1: I mean, I do remember the drama of like people
Speaker 1: swimming in the sein and getting sick.
Speaker 2: Well, fortunately this one involves no vomiting, but it does
Speaker 2: involve physics. So do you know what it takes to
Speaker 2: be considered an Olympic sized pool?
Speaker 1: Mango? I mean kind of, but maybe you clarify it
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's kind of sounds like when you're
Speaker 2: a kid and you're like, no, no, I totally know,
Speaker 2: but why don't you say it first?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like twice the size of a wide pool,
Speaker 1: Like that's what I remember.
Speaker 2: Vertty much all right, Well, the pool must be fifty
Speaker 2: meters long, and each of the eight lanes must be
Speaker 2: two point five meters wide. And back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: when the Olympics were awarded to Paris, the pool's depth
Speaker 2: had to be at least two meters deep or approximately
Speaker 2: six feet seven inches.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I got it some real specifications there.
Speaker 2: That's right, all right, So in twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 2: Paris Olympic pool did conform to size. It was two
Speaker 2: point one five meters deep or seven feet one inch.
Speaker 2: But two point one five meters is actually pretty shallow
Speaker 2: for an Olympic pool.
Speaker 1: And why is that? Like, is it that like tall
Speaker 1: swimmers can bump to the floor when they're diving or
Speaker 1: what's going on there?
Speaker 2: Actually, this is where the physics comes into play. So
Speaker 2: the issue is that the shallower the pool, the more
Speaker 2: turbulence is created by the swimmers, which potentially means a
Speaker 2: much slower pool.
Speaker 1: Oh. I actually vaguely remember that at the Beijing Olympics
Speaker 1: the pool was like extra wide and deep, and I
Speaker 1: heard that's like why so many records were broken.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, And I do want to
Speaker 2: get to that in a minute. But during the Paris Olympics,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of hubbub around the fact that
Speaker 2: after four days and fifteen events, no world records had
Speaker 2: been beaten, which is pretty unusual for an Olympics. So
Speaker 2: it led to a bunch of press about how slow
Speaker 2: the pool was. But in the end it was maybe
Speaker 2: all a bit premature because eventually four world records were set,
Speaker 2: but for context, in Tokyo six were set, and Rio
Speaker 2: there were actually eight.
Speaker 1: So Paris, I guess was on the low side in
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 2: That's right, and World Aquatics, which is the international governing
Speaker 2: body for swimming, certainly thinks the Shaaloness played a part
Speaker 2: in that. And now going four, the new minimum depth
Speaker 2: for an Olympic pool is two point five meters. But
Speaker 2: to what you were alluding to, the pool at the
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics was also noteworthy, so
Speaker 2: a whopping twenty five world records were set there.
Speaker 1: Oh that's crazy. I had no idea it was that many.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty wild. So everyone was trying to figure
Speaker 2: out why this was happening, and there was certainly speculation
Speaker 2: it was because of the incredible pool, which was also
Speaker 2: called the Watercube. Now, the water Cube was a full
Speaker 2: three meters deep, which, by the way, is actually considered
Speaker 2: an optimal depth. It had ten lanes, even though only
Speaker 2: eight swimmers would race at a time, and that extra
Speaker 2: space apparently meant that waves the swimmers were creating could
Speaker 2: go to the unused edge lanes, all with the goal
Speaker 2: of making the water as smooth as possible during these
Speaker 2: full on superhuman swimming feeds. So, in fact, NPR wrote
Speaker 2: about the water Cube and they interviewed a guy named
Speaker 2: Rowdy Gains.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that named Rowdy. Is that his real name?
Speaker 2: Actually? Yes, sort of. So Rowdy's full name is Ambrose
Speaker 2: Gains the four, but his father's that's actually true, but
Speaker 2: his father, Ambrose number three, was nicknamed Buddy anyway. Rowdy
Speaker 2: was an Olympic gold medalist back in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: but he's probably best known for being a swimming commentator
Speaker 2: for NBC. And so back in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: NPR was interviewing him and he's just gushing about the
Speaker 2: water Cube. He called it the fastest pool in the
Speaker 2: world and how the depth is perfect because it's not
Speaker 2: so deep that you lose your sense of vision, but
Speaker 2: also deep enough to help with all the turbulence. He
Speaker 2: was a big fan of this pool, and it's definitely
Speaker 2: a nice pool. But when forty three world records were
Speaker 2: set at the two thousand and nine World Championships in Rome,
Speaker 2: people started wondering, thinking, you know, maybe there's something else
Speaker 2: going on besides the watercubes engineering.
Speaker 1: I thought like, twenty five world records was a lot.
Speaker 1: Now you're like uffing it to forty three. That's insane.
Speaker 1: Did they figure out what was causing all these world records?
Speaker 2: Well, two thousand and eight was the year those high
Speaker 2: tech basically full body polyurethane based swimsuits were introduced into
Speaker 2: the Olympics. You remember when you started seeing these, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it was like a collaboration between NASA and they
Speaker 1: were like called sharkskin suits, right.
Speaker 2: That's right though. So those suits were used in Beijing,
Speaker 2: and they were also used the next year in Rome,
Speaker 2: and all this record breaking was just too much for
Speaker 2: the World Aquatics Association, who banned the suits, saying they
Speaker 2: wanted to maintain the integrity of swimming. Today, there are
Speaker 2: restrictions on the materials that can be used for competition suits,
Speaker 2: as well as the length of those suits, so mens
Speaker 2: suits can only be from the waist to the knees
Speaker 2: and women's suits from the shoulders to the knees. And
Speaker 2: since those changes, the pace of new world records is
Speaker 2: definitely less extreme.
Speaker 1: It also reminds me of when FIFA used a new
Speaker 1: ball at the World Cup and that caused all this
Speaker 1: extra spin, and I remember, like, the strikers loved it
Speaker 1: because it was like a super high goal scoring World Cup,
Speaker 1: but the goalies hated it because it's sort of embarrassing.
Speaker 1: But it's funny how like stitching on a soccer ball,
Speaker 1: or like a swimsuit or whatever can completely change the
Speaker 1: dynamics of the sport at that level. But speaking of
Speaker 1: world records, have you heard about the Guinness World Record
Speaker 1: for the farthest distance swimming in one week in a
Speaker 1: fifty meter pool one week? Is that what you said?
Speaker 1: I I can't say that. I do know that record,
Speaker 1: So let me tell you how much he swam. It
Speaker 1: was three hundred and fifty eight point two kilometers or
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty two point six miles.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is so many more miles than I was expecting.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the record was set by a long distance
Speaker 1: swimmer named Spiro Sachrisycopolis, and this was between May ninth
Speaker 1: and May sixteenth in twenty twenty one, and so he
Speaker 1: essentially spent the entire week swimming. Like Spiro said, he'd
Speaker 1: stop every two to four kilometers to eat, and he
Speaker 1: would occasionally nap for an hour or two or use
Speaker 1: the restroom, but basically he swam for a week straight.
Speaker 1: And Spiro said his biggest issues were how sore and
Speaker 1: stiff his shoulders got, and he also said that his
Speaker 1: skin got really dry from all the chlorine. And also
Speaker 1: he said that at a certain point he started to
Speaker 1: have some hallucinations, like seeing spiders up in the roof.
Speaker 2: God, that definitely sounds like a Nightmary just kept going, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know, the drive for world record fame is
Speaker 2: really strong, and Spiro said he'd always wanted to be
Speaker 2: in the Guinness Books since he was a kid.
Speaker 1: Of the three hundred and fifty eight point two kilometers,
Speaker 1: he swam three hundred and fifty eight of it freestyle,
Speaker 1: and it was just the last two hundred meters that
Speaker 1: he did the backstroke, maybe because at that point he
Speaker 1: couldn't move his arms over his head anymore.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's incredible. All right. Well, I do have a
Speaker 2: story that I want to share about my favorite pool sport.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, let's take one more
Speaker 2: quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about
Speaker 1: swimming pools and will I think you were just about
Speaker 1: to talk about your favorite swimming sport.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, Mango. When you were a kid, did you
Speaker 2: ever play that game when you toss the ring to
Speaker 2: the bottom of the pool and then you'd have to
Speaker 2: race your friends to see who could grab it first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'd mostly toss the ring and let
Speaker 1: them chase it.
Speaker 2: But right, because, as we established, not a strong swimmer.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, uh, you know, Marco Polo that
Speaker 1: chicken fighting game like which only lasted a few minutes
Speaker 1: until the lifeguard told you to stop, like there were
Speaker 1: only really a tru games at the pool to play.
Speaker 2: That's that's very true, all right. But you toss the
Speaker 2: ring to the bottom of the pool, except you're part
Speaker 2: of a team. You're wearing a snorkel and flippers and
Speaker 2: clutching a little stick that kind of looks like a spatula,
Speaker 2: and instead of trying to grab a ring, you're trying
Speaker 2: to push this puck like object into a goal.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like swim hockey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sometimes called underwater hockey, but it's more often
Speaker 2: called called octopush.
Speaker 1: Oh. You know, I love ridiculous sports. It's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been married to Lizzy for like fifteen years and
Speaker 1: she still hasn't taken me to play whirli ball in Chicago,
Speaker 1: which is like lacrosse in bumper cars idea. But tell
Speaker 1: me about octopush. How to get it start?
Speaker 2: Well, as legend has it, octopush was invented in England
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties. There was this diver named Alan
Speaker 2: Blake who had started this diving club and during the
Speaker 2: summer there was lots to do out in the sea,
Speaker 2: but during the winner there really wasn't, and so he
Speaker 2: wanted to keep the club active, so he had some
Speaker 2: friends come up with a game that he could play
Speaker 2: and then indoor pool. There'd be eight players per team.
Speaker 2: Each player would have a short little hockey stick like
Speaker 2: contraption and they would use that to push a weighted
Speaker 2: puck like object, which they decided to call the squid.
Speaker 2: And this would be pushed into the other team's goal
Speaker 2: and hence octopush was born.
Speaker 1: So is octopush still around? Definitely.
Speaker 2: I mean it's perhaps not the most popular sport in England,
Speaker 2: but there is a league and there are competitions. Oxford
Speaker 2: even has an octopush club today. It's actually played with
Speaker 2: six players per team instead of eight, and they don't
Speaker 2: call the puck a squid anymore. So, like, if you're
Speaker 2: a real traditionalist octopush player, like this is upsetting. But anyway,
Speaker 2: it's tricky as the spectator sport because everything takes place
Speaker 2: below the surface. But on YouTube there actually matches filmed
Speaker 2: with this underwater camera and it's pretty fun to watch.
Speaker 2: You should definitely look it up. And players are constantly
Speaker 2: diving up and down. It's pretty fast paced.
Speaker 1: Man, I can't wait to watch. And here's hoping we'll
Speaker 1: see it in the twenty threey two Olympics.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, while we're waiting on that to happen,
Speaker 2: why don't we waste a little time with a fact off,
Speaker 2: let's leap in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I got my first fact right here. Apparently
Speaker 1: the deepest swimming pool in the world is located in
Speaker 1: Dubai at almost two hundred feet and it was built
Speaker 1: for the Crown prints of the but it's open to
Speaker 1: the public mainly for people to go diving in. They've
Speaker 1: even built a fake abandoned sunken city at the bottom,
Speaker 1: so there is plenty to explore a.
Speaker 2: Fake abandoned city. That does sound pretty fun, so not
Speaker 2: as fun as the pool in the Arizona Diamondbacks Ballpark.
Speaker 2: This fits thirty five people and you can actually rent
Speaker 2: it out during games.
Speaker 1: That is incredible and it seems like a pretty great
Speaker 1: way to get people who are into baseball to go
Speaker 1: watch a game with you. Well, speaking of pools, I
Speaker 1: definitely want to visit The Golden Nugget Casino in Vegas
Speaker 1: has a pool that's next to a two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: gallon shark tank and it's got a water slide that
Speaker 1: races you through it. There's actually a similar thing at
Speaker 1: the Atlantis Resort and the Bahamas, and it's even crazier,
Speaker 1: Like one of the shark slides is built so that
Speaker 1: you can go down this lazy river that's built under
Speaker 1: the shark tanks, so you're just surrounded by sharks above
Speaker 1: and around you. It both seems incredible and beautiful and
Speaker 1: really terrifying.
Speaker 2: Wow, that does sound both exciting but also super scary.
Speaker 2: And you know, as fun as that sounds, for the excitement,
Speaker 2: I think I would rather swim in the Embassy Gardens
Speaker 2: pool in London. Now I'd have to know someone who
Speaker 2: lives there to invite me to visit. But after I
Speaker 2: do that, I could swim in their pool, which is
Speaker 2: suspended one hundred and fifteen feet in the air between
Speaker 2: two buildings. It's not the highest pool in the world
Speaker 2: that's at the Ritz Carlton, Hong Kong, but it might
Speaker 2: be the coolest. It is totally transparent, so if you
Speaker 2: look up from below, you just see this stripe of
Speaker 2: a pool in the sky with tiny people swimming around
Speaker 2: in it. Take the look at this picture here.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. Honestly, like that would be a really
Speaker 1: good place to watch a game of Octopush. You can
Speaker 1: watch from the ground and look up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, if the Oxford Octo Push Team plays the
Speaker 2: Embassy Gardens Apartment oct To Push Team, you and I
Speaker 2: let's agree, we're gonna go get tickets.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it. So here's one less fact, and
Speaker 1: it's about the hidden swimming pool in the White House.
Speaker 1: So the pool was built for FDR and was apparently
Speaker 1: state of the art. It was tricked out with lights,
Speaker 1: it had all these gadgets in it, and he was
Speaker 1: wheelchair bound, but he loved to swim for exercise, and
Speaker 1: then Truman and JFK both used it as well. But
Speaker 1: President Nixon, much like ourselves, wasn't a swimmer, and as
Speaker 1: you might know, he famously put bowling alleys into the
Speaker 1: White House. But he boarded up the swimming pool with planks,
Speaker 1: and today it is still there, living underneath the White
Speaker 1: House Press room. Isn't that amazing when you see all
Speaker 1: those reporters, they're sitting on boards that are over an
Speaker 1: empty pool. Today the space is filled with computer servers
Speaker 1: and wires and equipment. But according to Atlas Obscura, you
Speaker 1: can actually visit it by trapdoor or there's a little
Speaker 1: hidden staircase, and the place apparently still smells of chlorine.
Speaker 2: Man, you saved it for the very last line. You
Speaker 2: worked in a trapdoor and a hidden staircase. So for that,
Speaker 2: I think I have to give you to Day's backtoc trophy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it has been a while, so I'm glad
Speaker 1: I finally get to put one on the shelf.
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna say anything, but yeah, it's been a minute.
Speaker 1: So that's it for today's episode. Special thanks to Marissa Brown,
Speaker 1: who gets the hat tip for researching and writing for
Speaker 1: this episode, but from Gabe, Dylan, Mary, Will and myself,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and me Mongaishatikler and research by our
Speaker 1: good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Leeidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.