Olympic diving bronze medallist Dan Goodfellow and five-time Paralympic champion Ellie Simmonds marked 100 days to go until the 2022 Commonwealth Games by visiting the facilities at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre.
They were joined by double Paralympic champion Maisie Summers-Newton at the venue in Birmingham, England, which has recently been completed.
The brand-new, state-of-the-art venue has been constructed in time for the multi-sport event, where it will be in operation for all 11 days of sporting action.
Six days of swimming will take place from Friday 29 July to Wednesday 3 August with heats from 10.30am-12.30pm and a three hour finals session every night starting at 7pm.
The Sandwell Aquatics Centre will be the busiest venue at the Games with a total of 40 swimming, 14 para-swimming and 12 diving medals up for grabs in the brand-new £73 million facility.
Once the Games is over it will be converted to a community leisure facility, so local club swimmers also joined the celebrations, to test out the main 50m pool.
Birmingham 2022, organisers of the Games which will see around 4,500 athletes from 72 nations and territories compete in 19 different sports and eight Para sports, also marked the 100-day milestone with a final major release of tickets, with seats for every single sport back on sale.
Simmonds, who retired following the Paralympics in Tokyo in 2021, is a Birmingham 2022 board member.
She said:
“With 100 days to go until the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games begin, it is fantastic news that the Sandwell Aquatics Centre is now complete, and it is amazing to be back here to see the finished facility.
“This is an important and proud moment for everyone associated with Birmingham 2022 and having swimmers and divers in the pools for the very first time makes the Games feel real.
“We’ve also taken this opportunity to put tickets back on sale, but for sports like aquatics, which has been hugely popular during our ballots and general sale, tickets are limited, so I’d urge everyone to secure their seat right now.”
The construction of the venue, which is located in Smethwick, just a few miles from Birmingham, has been overseen by Sandwell Council and Tony McGovern, Director of Regeneration & Growth, said:
“We are very proud to celebrate the completion of the state-of-the-art Sandwell Aquatics Centre in Smethwick.
“This is testament to the hard work and dedication of our construction partners, who worked diligently throughout the project and a global pandemic to complete this venue on time and on budget.
“We are incredibly excited to be part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, which will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate Sandwell on a global stage as the proud host venue for the swimming, Para swimming and diving events for the Games.
“We want the whole community in Sandwell and beyond to benefit from the world-class swimming and diving facilities at this fantastic new facility.
“More than that, the new Aquatics Centre is supporting our vision to boost the health and wellbeing of our communities, driving economic growth and regeneration, and improving transport links.”
Dame Louise Martin, president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, said:
“As we reach the final sprint, Birmingham and the West Midlands should be enormously proud of all the Games progress to date.
“The Sandwell Aquatics Centre is an impressive, world-class, community-focused facility and I’ve no doubt all remaining tickets will be in high demand when they go back on sale today.”
Now that the Sandwell Aquatics Centre has been completed, the facility will stage a couple of events ahead of the Games.
On 30 April a community swimming gala will be overseen at the venue by Sandwell Council and then from 20 May to 22 May Birmingham 2022 will stage a series of test events including swimming and diving training sessions, and a swimming competition where tickets will be allocated to local residents and the swimming community.