Hello,
I have to disagree with the above post, as a former USMS swimmer now living and swimming in Berlin, Germany. There are quite a few structured masters teams here in Berlin, and many do focus on competing in meets. Of course there are also many casual clubs (clubs for sports and hobbies in general are more common here, or at least historically were) so it might take some searching to find what you're looking for.
Above posters are correct in saying that lap swimming in Germany generally sucks, although it depends on when and where you swim, and for a short visit public pools would probably suffice. For information on all public pools in Berlin, check out http://www.berlinerbaeder.de/ if you can understand German or get by with an online translator. The Swimmersguide link above also looks quite good.
I have yet to see a masters team that practices in the mornings, unfortunately, and it's not unusual for practices to be quite late, for example 8-10 pm. My current team offers masters practices 5 evenings a week, three of which are specifically aimed at competition/meet swimmers, and all of which follow a training plan. I'm not sure what the policy on guest/visiting swimmers is, but when I first got here and was looking for a new team, I was able to attend a few practices as a trial period before I joined a particular team.
At a recent masters meet in Berlin there were 23 teams/clubs in attendance, and the following 11 had more than 5 swimmers participating:
Berliner TSC
BSC Robben
BSV "Friesen 1895"
BSV Medizin Marzahn
PSV Delphin 1889
SC Humboldt-Uni Berlin
SG Neukölln Berlin
SG Schöneberg, Berlin
SSV Ostring 93
Vorspiel SSL Berlin
Wasserfreunde Spandau 04
Hello,
I have to disagree with the above post, as a former USMS swimmer now living and swimming in Berlin, Germany. There are quite a few structured masters teams here in Berlin, and many do focus on competing in meets. Of course there are also many casual clubs (clubs for sports and hobbies in general are more common here, or at least historically were) so it might take some searching to find what you're looking for.
Above posters are correct in saying that lap swimming in Germany generally sucks, although it depends on when and where you swim, and for a short visit public pools would probably suffice. For information on all public pools in Berlin, check out http://www.berlinerbaeder.de/ if you can understand German or get by with an online translator. The Swimmersguide link above also looks quite good.
I have yet to see a masters team that practices in the mornings, unfortunately, and it's not unusual for practices to be quite late, for example 8-10 pm. My current team offers masters practices 5 evenings a week, three of which are specifically aimed at competition/meet swimmers, and all of which follow a training plan. I'm not sure what the policy on guest/visiting swimmers is, but when I first got here and was looking for a new team, I was able to attend a few practices as a trial period before I joined a particular team.
At a recent masters meet in Berlin there were 23 teams/clubs in attendance, and the following 11 had more than 5 swimmers participating:
Berliner TSC
BSC Robben
BSV "Friesen 1895"
BSV Medizin Marzahn
PSV Delphin 1889
SC Humboldt-Uni Berlin
SG Neukölln Berlin
SG Schöneberg, Berlin
SSV Ostring 93
Vorspiel SSL Berlin
Wasserfreunde Spandau 04
