Saudi Arabia – Poles Apart

After spending nine months coaching swimming in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia I thought discussing aspects of the experience may have merit. I will do this over the course of two or three posts. I hope you find them interesting.

First – let’s consider the facilities available for swimming in Saudi Arabia. As a means of saving money, prudent shoppers in most countries buy grocery items in bulk. But in Saudi Arabia bulk buying has taken on a whole new meaning. I’m told that when the Kingdom wanted a new 50 meter Olympic pool they went to Germany and inspected the swimming facility built for the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. So impressed were the Saudi shoppers that they didn’t just order one Munich pool – they bought three. One for the Red Sea city of Jeddah, one for the capital city Riyadh and one for the Gulf city of Dammam.

Olympic pools in bulk – and I can assure you they are very good pools. The Germans delivered a quality product – three quality products. And apart from one or two superficial items all three are identical. There is a 50 meter 8 lane main pool, a 25 meter 6 lane warm up pool, a 22 meter diving pool, saunas, pace lights along the pool deck, cold-water treatment rooms, massage rooms, accommodation, huge press offices, administration offices, weight rooms, reception rooms, kitchens, all-around grandstand seating, VIP rooms and seating, fully functional movie screen scoreboards, everything needed to run a successful Olympic Games.

You may ask – are the pools well maintained? Beyond belief is the answer. A team of about 20 cleaning staff, sweep, polish and shine every tile, window and seat. The water is perfect, the changing rooms and showers are spotless and the lavatories are never short of toilet paper. But there is a problem. The maintenance and security staff are managed by a different government department from those, like me, responsible for using the pool. And the maintenance people worked out long ago that the fewer people using the pool, the less cleaning and maintenance is needed.

For the maintenance company doing a good job, being promoted, pleasing their superiors means keeping as many people away from the pool as possible. So what did they do?

Well first they excluded 50% of the Saudi population. You will not find any Saudi Arabian women ever using the three Olympic Pools. That rule denies access to 15 million women. Ironically, and because the pools were designed in Germany, there are toilets and changing rooms for women – just no women to use them. That has saved the maintenance company a packet of money.

And second the use of the pool by foreigners is actively discouraged. These pools, I have been told, are for Saudi citizens only. The 10 million foreigners who live in Saudi Arabia from places like Syria (1 million), India (2 million), Pakistan (1.5 million), Philippines (1.5 million) and a host of other places like Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Indonesia are not welcome. I have occasionally wondered how Saudi Arabia avoids IOC scrutiny for policies that must be close to racist. Imagine if New Zealand banned all Asians from public pools.   

The exclusions mean that three Saudi Olympic pools and a dozen smaller 25 meter pools are just for the Saudi born, male population. But even for this group the maintenance people are not about to let them in easily. At the gates into the pool there are guards trained in turning people away. Inside the pool security staff lock the doors and turn out the lights in a concerted effort to make swimming as difficult as possible. And it works. Almost every day I arrive to find the entry door locked. Most days I get a phone call from a swimmer at the gate telling me he is not being allowed in. Every day I have to walk across to the gate and provide direct proof that yes this swimmer is wanted by me in the pool half an hour ago.

And when I suggested that my swimmers wanted to use the obviously never-used weight training facilities, I thought the maintenance guy, Mr Ali, who is about my age, was going to need attention at the King Abdulaziz Hospital. After a week I managed to gain entry and have used it daily ever since. However the use has come at a price. At least once a week I have to explain to Mr Ali why a swimmer was seen dropping a barbell on the floor or some other niggle designed to make life difficult.

I tried to make regular use of the sauna and cold water facilities – but have given up. The sauna is never heated, the cold water never chilled. It is too difficult, too much trouble. The facilities are the best in the world. It’s just a pity the expression “they never get used” is not far from the truth.

And how do I know all this? Is there a symbol that stands as a constant reminder that those charged with building and caring for the pools are well ahead of those, like me, responsible for using the pools. Well, yes there is. Outside the main gates to each pool there are an Olympian number of flag poles. In the flag pole world these are Rolls Royce models – twelve meters high, stainless steel, brushed satin finish, with a standard internal halyard systems using heavy duty nylon rope, secured on the inside of the pole with a cam action cleat.

The pool at Jeddah is blessed with 60 – yes you read that right – 60 of these beauties. I’ve only ever seen one flag. I guess the other 59 poles are there just in case. However the real paradox, the enigma that stunned this puzzled westerner is just how and why any pool should have more flag poles at the gate than swimmers ever using to pools inside.