Dear Governor Sununu,

My name is Rhi Jeffrey and I am an Olympic gold medalist swimmer from the 2004 Olympics in Athens Greece. I currently live, train, and operate a youth swim team of my own in New Hampshire. Running my own program has always been my life's dream, swimming gave me everything as a kid and I've wanted to be able to give back to the sport in as many ways as I can. 

I had a very unstable childhood growing up with someone with mental health issues and addiction. I have dealt with severe bouts of depression and anxiety (especially post Olympics) and had grow up quickly only being 17 when I went to the Games. My one constant has always been the swimming pool. The one thing that kept my life together and gave me structure when there was none as a kid was swimming. That's what I strive to provide my swim team kids with every day. That's what I strive to bring to the entire New England Swimming LSC and beyond. Swimming is my greatest love and I know others in this area feel just as strongly, from the lessons swimmers to the competitive kids to the adults that can do this sport far longer than most others. Swimming is not only good for everyone's physical health (more vital than ever right now) it is amazing for mental health as well.

New England Swimming is one of the higher ranked LSC's in the country for swimming. You have a lot of extremely talented swimmers residing in your state that are not only dealing with the mental effects of school being canceled, big events being cancelled, and having to stay locked away from their friends for the last two months, but are also dealing with their Olympic Trials and Games being postponed as well as many other championship meets around the country. A lot of these kids outlets is the pool.

Lastly, I am not suggesting we allow entire swim teams back in all at once. We need to be allowed to start phasing our swimmers back in like the rest of the sports in this area (not to mention ours is in one of the safest places according to the CDC). One per lane would be quite manageable and very safe if cleaning procedures afterwards were followed. 

USA Swimming has released numerous guidelines on how to safely return to the pool. https://www.usaswimming.org/docs/default-source/coaching-resourcesdocuments/covid-19-team-resources/facility-reopening-plan-guidelines.pdf?sfvrsn=8a533a32_2

The CDC has presented information about the safety of chlorine swimming pools in the coronavirus pandemic. They have stated there is no evidence coronavirus can be spread through a chlorinated pool. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/parks-rec/aquatic-venues.html

All of this and we are still opening all other facilities before pools are mentioned. Even Massachusetts has put their pools into Phase 2 of their reopening. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/reopening-four-phase-approach

Please Governor Sununu, open our pools! They are safer than some of the other places already open.