What is the size of an Olympic swimming pool?

According to the rules of World Aquatics (formerly FINA), an Olympic-size swimming pool is 50 metres long and 25 metres wide.

Specifications of an Olympic pool:

• Length: 50 m (this is called a "long course" pool).
• Width: 25 m.

Number of lanes: 10 lanes, each 2.5 m wide. In Olympic competition, usually 8 lanes are used (lanes 1 to 8), with the outer two lanes left empty to reduce waves.

Depth: at least 2 m, with 3 m recommended for top competitions.

Water temperature: 25-28 °C.

Volume: about 2,500 cubic metres (2.5 million litres) of water at 2 m depth.

Lane ropes are used to separate lanes and to reduce waves, and touchpads at each end record times electronically.

A "short course" pool is 25 m long; world records are kept separately for short course and long course.

Swimming at the Olympics:

Swimming has been part of every modern Olympics since 1896. The first Olympic swimming events were held in open water (the sea).

The four strokes used in competition are freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. The medley combines all four.

Michael Phelps of the USA has won the most Olympic medals in history (28, including 23 golds).

World Aquatics, the international governing body, is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was renamed from FINA in December 2022.

India and swimming:

• Sajan Prakash and Srihari Nataraj became the first Indian swimmers to achieve the "A" Olympic qualifying standard, for Tokyo 2020.
• Murlikant Petkar won India's first Paralympic gold in swimming in 1972.
• Mihir Sen was the first Indian to swim across the English Channel (1958), and Arati Saha was the first Asian woman to do so (1959).

Why not the other options?

• ✗25 m x 15 m is closer to the size of a small short course pool.
• ✗50 m x 20 m is narrower than the Olympic standard.
• ✗100 m x 25 m is not a standard pool size.