The thing about swimming, I find, is that it takes you into your own little world, where you become aware only of the repetitive requirements for forward motion. It's a sport where, more than any other I know of, there is the possibility of daydreaming.

But as I surfaced at one point in my swim today, any lulled senses were swiftly sharpened by the vision of Lord Sebastian Coe walking past, suited and booted, no more than 10 metres away.

"Verily," I thought, "this be not the Grange Paddocks pool in Bishop's Stortford, wherein ladies of a certain age are wont to proceed in conversation, and without dampening their hairstyles. Yea, I am in lane four of the London 2012 Olympic pool."


The only qualifications required for such a privilege on the day the Aquatics Centre officially opened - by coincidence, a year exactly before the London 2012 Olympics are due to get underway - were to be a member of the media, and ideally, capable of swimming a length of the 50 metre pool without getting into undue distress.

To be honest - and why not? - swimming 50m straight off feels a bit of a stretch. I have never swum so far in a straight line. But then I live in England, where, to be honest - and why not? - there are relatively few opportunities to practise such an accomplishment.

I believe I am right in saying that the London Aquatics Centre, built for £269 million by Balfour Beatty to a design by the internationally acclaimed, Baghdad-born architect Zaha Hadid, is only the sixth official Olympic-sized pool in Britain.

There's probably more than that number in Brisbane alone.


But if the Aussies have more pools than us, they certainly don't have a pool like this one. OK. The swooping vision of the original Hadid roof has been blinkered. Rather than being more than 3000m², it was reduced to a mere 1000m². Meanwhile, costs rose by the same ratio - the figure of £242 million was around three times the original budget projection, and the numbers continued to spin until they reached £269 million. So perhaps that original design might have been a flourish too far. And perhaps Hadid could solace herself with the fact that, unlike her grand designs for the Cardiff Bay Opera House or the Peak Club in Hong Kong, this one actually got built. And in double-quick time.

Coe, who had earlier escorted the International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge around this watery wonder, firmly defended the decision to clip the wings of the visionary roof.

"I don't think this was the time or the place or the environment for vanity building," he said to the relatively small gathering of British media folk who were preparing to immerse themselves. "They do their task.

"We made a judgement at Games time, yep, ok, they are not probably going to be the prettiest things on the side of what is a beautiful pool. But we have been consistent with what we have said, whether the economy was at the high water mark or bumping along the ground we were going to deliver sustainably and responsibly."


The roof may be straighter laced than envisaged, but the ceiling of the pool itself is positively voluptuous, with dazzling spotlights studded into it like so much body jewellery.

While backstroking, it is quite something to contemplate, along with the steeply banked seats, broadly marked in white and yellow by a giant section of the Olympic logo, which rise at either side.

There had been speculation that the top seats on one side would have their view of the pool marred by the belly of the roof. Not so, according to a series of pictures shown to me after my little dip by the venue operations manager, Gregg Holland, which make it clear that all of the pool, and a bit of the opposite stand, is visible - even if there are shades of the Birmingham City press box about the view.

One thing that our future Olympians won't have to worry about, I can happily report - no horrid shock when they dive in. The water is pleasantly warm.

I confess, it is something I wondered about.

Shortly before the end wall the central line of dark blue tiles comes to a T-junction, beyond which will be the heart-stopping blank of the final stroke. There are swimmers now competing in Shanghai or training elsewhere who, a year from now, will be right here in this spot feeling gigantic emotions of joy and disappointment.

And as they look up from this spot at the steep tiers of seating either side of them, the noise in this enclosed arena will reverberate with excitement.


For Coe, the experience of this new sporting arena was clearly intense. Asked to look forward to the way he will be feeling when London 2012 finally gets underway, he responded: "If it's anything like what I feel today then it will be exceptional."

He added that Rogge had been "taken aback" by what he had seen, although he did not relay the words the IOC president had used. Given that Coe found the president's input "reassuring", we must assume he was pleasantly surprised.

In fact, I can corroborate that. As Rogge left the poolside, having watched a demonstration of synchronised swimming that was excellently performed but appeared to have fallen victim to a technical hitch in the sound system - unless this was a deliberate protest against yet another public airing of Queen's We Will Rock You - where was I, oh yes, as Rogge left the poolside, a surge of TV reporters made their way over to him as if their microphones were being dragged by some ineradicable force, and one of the number shouted out the urgent question: "Are you happy with what you have seen here?"

"Absolutely," replied Rogge, before moving smartly on.

As I had caught the unexpected sight of Coe while hanging on to one end of the pool - there's a little raised ledge all the way along at a convenient height, if you want to know - a colleague in the next lane asked the noble Lord if he was going to join us.

"I've got the best excuse in the world," Coe replied. "I can't swim."

You can't argue with that. But he was missing something.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.