Height and age rules for diving board at city pool are unfair
By Lethbridge Herald on October 28, 2022.
Kids all over the world like jumping off the three-metre diving board. That’s not available to kids in Lethbridge at Stan Siwik family pool.
There are new regulations in place that say if you aren’t a certain height or age (age 13) (height 1.35 m) you can’t jump off. The Lifesaving Society guidelines are being followed and I don’t like it and neither do all the people I talked to about it.
I have written a petition with over 130 signatures already. I started last Monday.
It is so unfair that you must be a certain height or age. For the age some people are over 13 and can’t swim if their life depended on it.
Some people on the other hand are much younger than 13 and have completed the swim program like me.
I am 11 and there are literally no more swim levels I can take before I am 13 but that’s too long to wait to jump off the high dive.
For the height that is no way for it to be safer. Some people who are short by nature will never be able to go off the high dive if these rules stay in place.
I think a much better solution would be a skill test where you have to swim at least a lap of the pool to show that you can swim so that people of any age or height can jump off it fairly.
Nora McKechnie
Lethbridge
11-10
Your concerns are valid Nora.
No doubt to avoid being sued if someone is injured, the Pool has adopted a standared set by the Life Saving Society , a standard which I suspect allows for no exceptions. The insurers of this Facility are unlikely to budge unless the Society itself modifies its position along the lines you suggest.
Given you are from a computer savvy generation perhaps you might be well served by taking your petition ” on-line” and directing it to the Association which made the rule being followed as well as the local facility.
Good luck and safe diving !