Maria Lenk Aquatic Center, Sports complex in Barra da Tijuca, Brazil
The Maria Lenk Aquatic Center is a partially covered aquatics venue in the City of Sports Complex, Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. It holds an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a warm-up pool and a diving tank, built to FINA specifications on a 42,000-square-metre site with seating for about 8,000 people.
The facility opened in 2007 as a training and competition site for the Pan American Games held in Rio de Janeiro that same year. Nine years later, it became a main venue during the 2016 Olympic Games.
The centre is named after Brazilian swimmer Maria Lenk, who died less than three months before its inauguration. The Maria Lenk Trophy, a national swimming competition, has been held here since 2017, and the facility also runs small schools in swimming, water polo, diving and synchronised swimming.
The centre stands in the City of Sports Complex in Barra da Tijuca, in western Rio de Janeiro. The facility was designed to FINA specifications and to Parapan American requirements, with environments and equipment prepared for people with disabilities. It is partly covered, so part of the pools and diving tank sit under a roof.
In 2018, the Brazilian Olympic Committee moved its headquarters into the complex, which means that the building now houses both active athletes training in the water and the administrators who oversee the country's Olympic program. Few sports venues in the world serve this dual role at the same time.
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