Column: Sports Management

'Si sapeva! I knew it!' barks Mattia's voice. It reverberates for a while in the large hall of the swimming pool in Pavia. At first I hadn't recognized him when he greeted me with an equally voluminous 'Hi, Stef!'. Face masks make people almost anonymous. But as he approached, I quickly saw it: it was my former Pilates instructor.

In the past, because more than a year ago, the municipality of Broni handed over its modern, public and indoor swimming pool to a private company, Sport Management (also in Italy it makes fluent English school). The operating costs were too high for the municipality, but the new owner (who also owns dozens of sports accommodations throughout Italy) saw the benefits of it. Fine, I thought, as long as I can keep doing my laps.

Unfortunately, the takeover had an unwanted side effect: the gym above the swimming pool was transformed into a gym crammed with all kinds of torture equipment. And with that, my years of stretching and stretching activities came to an end, with which I had nicely got rid of that nagging lower back pain. No more Pilates. The staff was fired and Mattia left for Pavia, which for me is a bridge (also literally: the 1.100 meters long Becca Bridge) was too far.

Fortunately, the swimming continued, although it came Sport Management with all kinds of novelties. These were mainly do's and don'ts, which were communicated to the swimming public via numerous plastic-coated A4 pages. What a gluttony, I thought. They look like Swiss!

One of the craziest ordinances was that you were not allowed to walk naked through the locker room. While that is one of the functions of that space: you can change and shower unobserved by non-swimmers or swimmers of the opposite sex. Or should we do that from now on like Mr. Bean on the beach?

Now it is true that many Italians are quite prudish and some swimmers already before the new regime went into effect used to go to the toilet with swimming trunks in hand to change. But on the other hand, there was also a football team years ago whose young members had no problem parading through the dressing room naked. But those times are definitely over. Or not?

I didn't care (rather off) and didn't intend to do such a bathrobe to buy that the Italians, straight out of the shower, the body still soaking wet, put on and with which they try to rub themselves dry. A ridiculous and clumsy way of doing things. Also from that struggle to reach all parts of your body with 'a towel you're wearing', Rowan Atkinson would have a nice Mr. Beanto create a scene. What the hell is wrong with an ordinary towel? Yes, that you are naked.

Another novelty was the brightly colored sandwich signs that appeared at every starting block of the pool. These indicated which lanes were intended for slow and fast swimmers, respectively. I always use a slow technique, the breaststroke, but at a brisk pace. Am I slow or fast now? Maybe I should do the front crawl. But I can only do that very slowly. Am I fast or slow? I decided not to care about this either. Fortunately, I always swim at quiet hours and I don't get in anyone's way.

Italians generally do not trust novelties very much and the first weeks after the takeover by Sport Management it was dead quiet in the bath. Were they going to survive this? In the last weeks before the takeover, when Mattia was still there, he stated with great certainty that the pool would always turn a loss. According to him, the building was built incorrectly and energetically as leaky as a basket. The data management; was doomed to failure by a private enterprise.

Little by little, however, the loyal job-seekers returned. There were some complaints in the dressing room, but everything was almost back to normal. Except at the cash register, where the chatty and sociable Katia had been replaced after years of loyal service by 'a living corpse', which did not look at you and did not greet you. 'Mi rovina la giornata,' claimed one of the faithful swimmers. "She's ruining my whole day." But that too, and then after many months of waiting the promised in September Tessera When you finally got there, you had nothing to do with the undead behind the till.

And then came 'the' corona. The pool had to be closed. And stayed closed. And while Sport Management cheerfully announced one reopening after another on its website in June, it remained frighteningly quiet around 'my' swimming pool. Then do some googling yourself. On a local news site I finally found the answer: Sport Management had returned its license, which was valid for 6 years, to the municipality.

Mattia was right. 'Si sapeva!' And the municipality dutifully started looking for a new candidate manager. Will that work in these uncertain times? I have few, with Mattia confidence in. In the meantime, the bath remains closed.

I resorted to the swimming pool in Pavia, so I crossed the bridge. 40 minutes there and 40 back, with 3 near-death experiences each time due to the driving behavior of other road users. Fortunately, after a few weeks, the fun open-air pool in Santa Maria della Versa, just a 10-minute drive from home, opened.

I do have an annual subscription of Sport Management worth €400 that I was only able to use half of it. No word from about the refund of the enjoyment not enjoyed Sport Management or the municipality. Only on yet another obscure provincial news site did I find the message that 'people' think of 'vouchers'.

With that you can go to another swimming pool from Sport Management, which they still see the exploitation of. Nice. I get my bathrobe ready and start practicing in slow swimming. Or fast.

🇮🇹Reading tip: Want to read more fun stories about life in Italy? You can find it in the three parts 'Italiaanse Status' by Stef Smulders, available at bol.com.