Helsinki Municipal Swimming Stadium and Ahvenisto Swimming Pool 

Finland’s first outdoor aquatics complex, the Helsinki Municipal Swimming Stadium, is open to the public from May to September. Although the venue is no longer used for international competitions, it is popular with the public and attracts nearly 300,000 visitors a year. Facilities include a 50-metre pool, a diving pool, a children’s pool and a wading pool, as well as a children’s play area, weightlifting area, two beach volleyball courts and a basketball court. The stadium underwent extensive refurbishment in 2013.

The Swimming Stadium, which hosted the swimming, diving and water polo competitions at Helsinki 1952, is located just 200 metres east of the Olympic Stadium. Construction began in 1939, in preparation for the 1940 Olympic Games, which were cancelled due to the Second World War. Work on the stadium resumed in 1947, and it was completed in time for the Games in 1952. The empty pools were used to store herring and root vegetables during the war.

Ahvenisto Swimming Pool, which hosted the swimming event in the modern pentathlon competition at Helsinki 1952, is located in the town of Hämeenlinna, an hour’s drive north of Helsinki. Another open-air pool, it is part of the Ahvenisto Activity Park and is open from mid-May to the end of August. Now a listed building, the pool closed in 1985 due to a lack of funding for renovation work. A conservation society was founded to raise money for its refurbishment, and it was eventually reopened in 2014. Three years later it was named Finland’s Sports Centre of the Year by the Ministry of Education and Culture.