THE brand new 50 metre Olympic Legacy Swimming Pool at the Mount Kelly Swim Centre is now one step closer to opening.

With the recent success of Team GB swimmers in Rio, it seems almost perfect timing that Mount Kelly have completed filling their new pool with water.

After more than five years of planning, an agreement was reached in 2015 to build the new eight-lane, 50 metre pool. Now, after a year long construction process, the £5-million project is tantalisingly close to completion.

The pool at Mount Kelly, which will be one of only 30 to 35, 50 metre pools in the UK, took a full five days to fill and now holds a staggering 1.4-million litres of water.

Richard Smith, the school’s commercial director, said: ‘Filling up the new 50 metre pool is an exciting milestone in this multi-million pound project. We have further tasks to complete such as completing the changing room and finishing the pool surround. 

There will be a full programme of comm-issioning  of the plant and machinery, which is necessary to run the state-of-the-art swim-ming pool, prior to opening to the public. The main works are on schedule for completion at the end of August 2016.’

The Olympic Legacy Swimming Pool has been made possible by Sport England National Lottery funding of more than £700,000.

Mr Smith previously said the legacy pool was the largest single investment made by the school in 100 years and would not have been possible without the support of Sport England.

With the pool scheduled to open at the end of the month, many swimmers from the local area, from around Great Britain and even abroad will soon have the opportunity to train in the long course swimming pool — under guidance from top class coaches with a training goal of swimming in the Devon County Swimming Championships or even competing at a future Olympic games.

Mount Kelly has helped to coach, develop and educate some of the UK’s top swimmers over the past 35 years.

Over the past three decades the school has produced 60 international swimmers, 19 of whom competed at the Olympic and Commonwealth games, winning an impressive six Olympic and nine Commonwealth medals.

The college’s swimmers have experienced similar success in the Paralympic games, winning five medals in Beijing 2008 and a further five at London 2012.

The recent Rio 2016 triumphs of 21-year-old Adam Peaty — who won gold in the men’s 100m breaststroke — and 25-year-old Jazz Carlin —who claimed silver in the women’s 400m freestyle — have thrown swimming into the forefront of Great British sport.

Swimming has never been so popular, and it seems like this summer is an ideal for Mount Kelly to open their new pool.

The completed project will enable competitive swimmers to be trained at a professional standard in professional pool conditions. The introduction of new facilities also aim to encourage keen and young hopefuls.

With the Olympic Legacy Swimming Pool at Mount Kelly scheduled to open at the end of August, who knows, perhaps a local youngster will be the next record-breaking swimming sensation to grace the waters at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.