Where does this come from, and can I check it?

It has ten lanes, though only the middle eight are used for finals. The figure is taken from World Aquatics, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a sports fact?

Yes. It sits on the Sports shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

An Olympic pool is 50 metres long

It has ten lanes, though only the middle eight are used for finals Each lane is 2.5 metres wide, and the water must be at least 2 metres deep for Olympic competition. The outer lanes act as a buffer so waves bounce away from the swimmers in the middle. A short-course pool is 25 metres, which is why separate world records are kept for each length. It sits in Mondo's sports collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

World Aquatics

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Sports trivia

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Tags: swimming, pool, measurement

An Olympic pool is 50 metres long: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: It has ten lanes, though only the middle eight are used for finals. The figure is taken from World Aquatics, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a sports fact?: Yes. It sits on the Sports shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.