El Corazon Aquatic Center Soft Opens To Oceanside Youth Clubs

OCEANSIDE, CA — It was a picture-perfect day for the soft opening of the much anticipated El Corazon Aquatics Center in Oceanside. While the "Grand Opening Ceremony" will be held on August 21st, local youth swim clubs and teams got to take a dip in the new pools on Monday.

This world-class aquatics center will provide competition-level amenities to serve Oceanside residents, school districts and host regional meets. El Corazon features a 56-meter competition pool, diving boards, splash pad, instructional/therapy pool, administrative offices, meeting rooms, large multi-purpose hall for events, locker rooms, family changing rooms and outdoor recreational and viewing areas.

The Patch took an exclusive tour of the new center with Amanda Roswell, Aquatic Supervisor and Mark Boston, Aquatic Technician.

Prior to diving into his role of aquatic technician at the new center, Mark was a seasonal lead lifeguard for nearly 7 years and has been with the city pools for 10 years.

Amanda has worked for the City of Oceanside for 24 years and was involved in the El Corazon project since it started back in 2015.

"It's nice to see it finally come together", said Amanda, "It's a great addition to the Oceanside community and will help build up our aquatics programming for both the youth clubs and the high schools."

Mark told us that Monday was the first day that the center opened to clubs and swim teams, but fittingly the first to use the new pools were the lifeguard academies.

The first group in the pool on Monday was the Piranha SwimTeam led by Coach Paul Ring, who has been a swimming coach in Oceanside for 32 years.

Next up in the pool was the Oceanside Swim Club led by Coach Kristi Caballero, who puts together the swim sets and workouts. She also coordinates with board members like Brandy Stark to host public events like the popular Labor Day Pier Swim. The Oceanside Swim Club will be putting on swimming demonstrations for the grand opening on the 21st.

The El Camino High School swim team was expected later in the evening.

Needless to say, both swim clubs were very excited to swim in a brand new pool. The youth swim teams will be using the facility before the Grand Opening Ceremony on the 21st. Then, on Sunday the 22nd the center will officially open to the public.

Related Article: El Corazon Aquatics Center In Oceanside Opening August 2

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