The Chattanooga Area Swim League became the latest summer league to cancel its season, but other states have provided some good news in the quest to return to the pool amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CASL serves more than 1,000 competitors from all over southeastern Tennessee. But Tuesday, the league cancelled its season, citing the ongoing restrictions around coronavirus.
“Due to multiple factors, including Governor Bill Lee’s ‘Tennessee Pledge,’ which states that all adult and youth sports leagues will remain closed under the guidelines until further notice, as well as news that some of our team pools have already decided not to open for the season, the board voted to cancel the 2020 season,” the CASL board announced in a statement. “No dual meets will be sanctioned by CASL, and the 2020 Bill Caulkins City Meet Championship is canceled. We sincerely hope that everyone understands and appreciates the difficulty of the decision to cancel the CASL season for the first time since the league began. …
“We feel profound sadness knowing the disappointment this will cause, but the decision was made to prioritize the safety of our participants, supporters and communities.”
Pools in North Carolina could open as soon as this weekend, provided conditions remain steady. Gov. Roy Cooper is set to allow the state to enter Phase 2 of the its COVID-19 reopening plan Friday, which would allow pools to open with added safety precautions in place.
“We know that the pools will need to do things to protect folks,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Secretary. “It will likely require them having less people around than at full capacity, making sure that they’re spacing chairs around the pool, wearing face coverings when they’re not directly in the pool and then once in the pool to have some social distancing with them, as well.”
Several pools in Ohio, which got the OK from Gov. Mike DeWine to open May 26, are preparing plans to do so.
Despite the glimmers of hope, it’s only a slight shift in the tide toward summer cancellations. Kentucky has been the site of one of the most contentious battles to let private pools open. But one of Louisville’s biggest clubs, Lakeside Swim Club, announced Tuesday that it wouldn’t open for the season. More than 9,000 members call the 96-year-old club home, including several former Olympians.
In a conversation with Swimming World, Kentucky LSC general chair Amy Albiero, who coaches at Cardinal Aquatics, said that she’d had a dialogue with Lakeside and Louisville’s other major club, Triton, about possibly sharing facilities.
Pools remain a sticking point in Kansas. Gov. Laura Kelly announced that the state will advance Friday to “modified phase 2” of its COVID-19 recovery. While gatherings of 15 or fewer people and youth sports practices can occur, swimming pools remain closed, grouped with bars and nightclubs as the only businesses still restricted.
One city that hasn’t been willing to ride out the uncertainty is Overland Park, which voted to keep its five city pools shut this season. Several cities in the Jayhawk State have reached that decision.
In Pennsylvania, closures have swept through the central and western part of the states. The Lehigh Valley added to that with 11 public pools in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton announcing they won’t open. Many of the areas remain in the harshest phase of that state’s three-stage restrictions, the “red phase.” Even if those areas advance to the “yellow phase,” public gatherings would be limited to 25 of fewer people. Those three cities join many smaller municipalities in cancelling their summer openings.
Though pools in Texas were green-lighted to open May 8, the city of Austin is keeping its pools closed. Part of the reason is a hiring freeze that affects the ability to staff its workforce of 700 lifeguards.
One flipside to the closing of pools, as yet undiscussed given the seriousness of the pandemic, is a fear of unsupervised swimming. Particularly as the first holiday weekend of the summer, Memorial Day, nears, there’s a concern in Texas about a spike in drownings as kids swim with less supervision or in more dangerous bodies of water.
Swimming Through a Pandemic
The postponements and cancellations wrought by COVID-19 haven’t just affected the Olympics and the ranks of elite swimmers. They’ve trickled down to neighborhood clubs and summer youth leagues, affecting thousands of recreational and competitive swimmers alike. Here is some of our coverage of COVID-19’s effect on the American summer swimming calendar.
- David Marsh to California Gov. Gavin Newsom: “We’d Love to Get These Pools Open”
- Summer Leagues Cancel in Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee; On Hold in Delaware
- Summer Leagues Cancel in Ohio, Nebraska; California Fights To Open Pools
- Midwestern Swimming Cancels Summer Season Because of COVID-19
- Northern Virginia Swimming League Cancels Season Officially, But Unofficial Meets Might Go On
- Decisions Loom in Several States to Determine Fate of Summer Swimming
- ‘Tremendously Difficult’ Decisions Loom for Summer Swimming Clubs
- Texas Pools Begin to Open, But Some Cities Holding Back
- With ‘Great Pain,’ Coastal Carolina Aquatic Association Cancels Summer Season
- Kentucky LSC Files Proposal to Reopen Pools in State
Resources for returning to the pool in the COVID-19 era
- Chlorine Not a Guaranteed Answer to Covid-19; Detailed Protocols The Way to Go, Says Expert
- USA Swimming Unveils Road to Competition Roadmap For Summer Return
- Pool Water Unlikely to Spread Coronavirus But Facility Environments Need Careful Handling, Says Expert
- 20 Things Coaches CAN Do To Be A Lighthouse For Swimmers In Corona Season
- Swim Practice Social Distancing Protocol
- The Worries and Concerns of Lap Swimming When Pools Open
- Proper Ways for Teams and Athletes to Resume Training (USA Swimming)
- Is the Water Safe From Coronavirus? Considerations for Return to the Pool
- Pools and Swimming: Getting Back in the Water Safely
- Coronavirus And Swimmers: CDC Issues Guidance On Water Transmission & COVID-19