CALGARY -- Kyra Christmas is an elite athlete, a member of Canada’s national women’s water polo team, but since the pandemic struck, she's just been another 23-year-old living with her parents on a farm just southeast of Airdrie in Rockyview.
Being in the water is super important for Christmas and her training, but COVID-19 shut down pools, so Christmas and her family had to get creative in order for her to get back in the water.
They tossed around a few ideas but didn’t really like any of them. Christmas says straw ended up bailing them out.
“We were kind of looking on Pinterest and my mom found people using hay bales to build pools," she said. "And we’re like oh, that’s a cool idea.”
And so the family got to work, building a pool out of straw bales. It’s 16 feet long, eight feet wide and six feet deep.
Kyra’s mom Dayna says it makes perfect sense to have this kind of pool in the prairies.
“You know Western Canada with what we have around us in the fields,” she said.
“We have the resources so we may as well use them. So I said, what could be more Western Canadian than pulling hay bales together to create a pool?”
There’s a total of 16 bales and they have to be properly strapped and braced for the straw pool to work.
Christmas says besides it being cold, the practice pool works very well.
“Like the (auto)-rebounder," she said. "It’s like someone giving me a pass and then I can shoot on the net. I also have a resistance band so I can just swim like I’m in an infinity pool.”
Christmas never thought she’d have a straw pool in her backyard. And she never thought she’s be getting the attention she’s gotten from it, either.
People want to check it out, she says. But they’ll just have to wait.
“Some of the girls from the old team that I played for, the Calgary Renegades, have reached out and asked if they can come use the pool,” she said.
“I have a teammate on the national team who’s in Calgary as well. I’m probably going to have her come out once the (COVID) restrictions are a little bit looser to come pass with me and stuff.
The Canadian national women’s water polo team qualified for the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics, the first Canadian team to do that since 2004.
Christmas says she’s hopeful the games will be played in 2021 and the good news is that the Canadian team won’t have to re-qualify. They already have their spot.
