An East London-based company has been chosen to install a multi-million rand filter system in Australia’s top aquatic sports institute.

Chairperson Jonathan Schewitz said his company, Atlas Filter Company, had been chosen to install water filtration systems at the prestigious Australian Institute of Sport’s new aquatic training and testing centre.

The centre forms the centrepiece of the AIS’s R400 million redevelopment of its Canberra campus.

Schewitz said co-operation between his company in East London and an Australian firm manufacturing its products under licence in that country, had snatched the multi-million rands contract in the face of stiff international competition.

Two years after construction of the new aquatic testing and training centre was commenced in 2004, the facility was officially taken into use recently.

The AIS said in a publication that it considered the centre as “critical to Australia’s maintaining its global dominance of aquatic sports”.

The focal point of the new aquatic centre is a 10-lane, 50-metre pool, which in most respects is typical of its kind, although the constant 3m depth is unusual.

Combined with this are very cold and hot water therapy spas and plunge pools together with a “hot water river” to ease muscular load on athletes and prepare them for massage.

According to the AIS, one of the significant challenges for the facility lay in its stringent water quality requirements. Extreme water clarity was necessary for underwater cameras, but heavy loads placed on the pool’s systems by the athletes made this a tall order.

Engineer Geoff Ninnes – who back in 2000 was involved with the company’s installation of a filtration plant for the Sydney Olympics – said regenerative pre-coat Diatomaceous Earth filters were chosen for the job for a number of reasons, including low water consumption, a compact plant and exceptional clarity.