Fifth Olympic Pool from the XX Olympiad (Pool #806)

23 June 2026

I had written over nine years ago about the four Olympic pools in which I'd had the pleasure of swimming, but that post was a couple of years after I had swum in that fourth Olympic pool, the Peter Daland pool at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center on the University of Southern California campus in 2015 ... and that was pool #206 on my #1001pools list!

It's taken me over a decade and 600 new pools tallied before I got to add my fifth Olympic pool, but the Olympia Schwimmhalle in Munich (#806) is finally on the list!

Now, I did get to the indoor, warmup pool the Piscines Bernat Picornell site of the Barcelona '92 Olympics as pool #630 back in 2023, but I cannot fully count that as it wasn't the main Olympic competition pool.

Scenes from almost an Olympic competition pool - Barcelona in September 2023

Back to Munich, though, the experience was a study in contrasts. The architecture was majestic and soaring, befitting an Olympiad. I truly have not seen such a stunning, gravity-defying carapace for a building: very futuristic even now over 50 years later.

Scenes from Munich Olympic Park and the Olympic Pool building

When I read this aspirational and inspirational vision, I'll say they nailed it with the buildings:

The pool itself was also dreamlike. They've clearly updated the tank, as it was originally built in concrete and is now a beautiful stainless steel with some parts of the floor being movable. The deck area was spacious and swimming backstroke under the funky roof was glorious, if a bit mind-bendy as it was hard to swim straight.

But, the swim itself was a nightmare. I had expected it to be crowded. I was there on a Tuesday night, arriving around 7pm after a work conference, and it was the middle of a heatwave. So the lanes were jammed up. More than crowded lanes, I was disappointed at the complete lack of attention to lane speed designations. We had some decently fast swimmers in the fast lane, but also some guys in board shorts who could barely do heads-up breaststroke.

Someday, I'd love to come back here to compete ... but, for now, this swim will have to do.

Outside of the pool, I was taken aback by the smallest, shortest unisex changing cabins. It was a bit tight for me to even change inside these miniscule stalls and it felt odd to have my head sticking over the top of the stalls. There was no one around me, but had someone been next to me, I think I could have seen them in all their glory. In addition, the stalls had another interesting "feature" (I'd call it a bug) - the edges of the panels didn't quite meet up. I know the Germans are much more comfortable with the naked body, but these were a bit too revealing for this North American.

Tiny changing cubicles with "see-through" walls

As I left the grounds, heading back to the Olympiazentrum underground spot, I passed my eponymous place ...

... not, of course, named after me, but after Avery Brundage, former IOC President whose reputation is quite mixed with the hindsight of history. As far we can tell (my uncle has done a lot of family tree research), we cannot find a connection to our branch of the Brundages ... but given that my forbears arrived in the New World almost 400 years ago ... maybe we just don't have the data yet to make the connection.