Fighting spirit in the swimming pool: When the person behind tickles twice

As soon as the days get shorter, the lanes in the outdoor pool also empty. In the morning the water is already warmer than the air, a light steam lies over the surface, broken only by the arms and heads of the last brave swimmers. There's no better way to start a late summer or fall day, I think.

But the peaceful atmosphere is deceptive. I hardly know of any place where the atmosphere is as simmering as underwater in the swimming pool.

There are the small aggressions that seem random at first glance. Like an accident. For example, if the person behind you swims close and touches your foot with their crawling hand. Basically, touching people doesn't put me off when swimming; I know the discipline as a contact sport from triathlon competitions. Things can get rough, especially at the start, and when crossing the lake I was pulled by my foot - illegally. But in the swimming pool I don't want to be tickled on the sole by strangers without asking. Especially not in the morning.

Especially since if it happens more than once, it's not an accident. But a not-so-subtle hint that the other person could swim much faster. She should! Just pass me. Or directly on the “sports track” for the really good swimmers. But it's perhaps a league too high for foot ticklers.

The swimmers act a little more offensively - although swimming is actually enough in at least 95 percent of cases - who want to mark their position on the lane by turning around. Every little gap is used to overtake when pushing off the wall, even if you briefly run into oncoming traffic and are more of an obstacle for the others than actually getting through the pool faster.

Before I started going to the swimming pool regularly, I wouldn't have believed that there was so much fighting spirit there. I had no idea where it could lead when your temper briefly overheats from exercise and endorphins. Then insults fly through the morning fog. Adult men pose threateningly in front of other swimmers who are either too slow or too aggressive in the water. On the neighboring train you roll your eyes - and above all you are relieved not to be involved in the unpleasant situation yourself.

I'm talking to a friend from another city about these struggles, he also swims regularly. “In our club, two swimmers once fought each other with paddles,” he says. A woman was led out of the swimming pool by the police after she could no longer calm down in her anger at other swimmers.

In one of the freakouts that I witnessed myself, there was also a pinch of racism. The swimmer's mood changed because, in her opinion, there were too many young people standing around at the end of a lane. She generalized that all “boys like you” were responsible for the destruction of her beautiful swimming pool. At least she left the pool herself before she could become even more abusive.

When riots in outdoor swimming pools were discussed in Germany in the summer of 2023 with blatant racist undertones, those involved overlooked one point: the everyday aggression on the track. There is no need to construct migrant scapegoats for them. You can also just watch how Peter or Udo behave during their morning two kilometers.