While Chennai now has the answer to every novice’s want for physical activity and love for sport, in the form of turfs, courts and outdoor spaces, swimming pools are still hard to come by. Recreational swimmers are almost always in search of accessible pools. Save a few public pools that have stood the test of time, clubs and luxury hotel chains are an option, albeit at a roaring monetary cost. At Blues by Tiki Taka, the city’s latest sports recreational facility located in Saidapet’s peaceful residential neighborhood of Srinagar Colony, a chlorine-free, ozone-treated, semi-Olympic swimming pool tackles this dilemma head on. The facility is also home to four wooden-floor badminton courts.
Officially launched in January, the facility spread across two floors, follows a sleek design replete with box lights, with a largely blue-grey colour palette. While the ground floor houses the semi-Olympic pool with a depth of three-and-a-half to five feet, including the spick-and-span, dry changing and shower rooms with lockers, the first floor has three wooden badminton courts with a designated space for a sports equipment kiosk. The court with no air conditioning has vents running all around to facilitate free flow of air.
“It is an ozone pool, there is no chlorine in it. Usually we hear a lot of complaints from swimmers about eye burn, rashes and itchy skin, which is why we wanted to keep it chlorine free. We believe that this is the first no-chlorine, public pool in Tamil Nadu,” says Lakshmi Palaniappan, director, Tiki Taka, a recreational sports centre that hosts seven facilities in Chennai for football, basketball, badminton, pickleball, cricket and now swimming.
