Swimming

Welcome! Willkommen! Bienvenue ! Benvenuti ! Bainvegni! Isten hozott! ¡Bienvenido! Witam!
いらっしゃいませ ! Ласкаво просимо!
!ברוך הבא Tervetuloa !

Thank you for your interest in our LGBTQ+ swimming club – the Zurich Sea Lions.

I'm Bastien (he/him) and I've been running the club since March 2016. Together with my deputy Nerico (he/him), we look after roughly 90 Sea Lions.

Our training

We have five swimming sessions per week (Monday midday and evening, Wednesday evening, Friday evening and Sunday morning) in which we practise the four swimming styles (crawl, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly) and swim a variety of series. You decide which training sessions you take part in.
 

For trans and intersex people who want to go swimming in a safe environment and don't necessarily want to take part in swimming training, we recommend TINA+ swimming on Tuesdays from 8pm to 9pm (except school vacations).

Membership Stop

We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept new members until further notice, as our swimming club has reached its capacity limits. We regularly assess the situation and will inform you here as soon as we are able to welcome new swimmers again.

About the Zurich Sea Lions club

We are an inclusive and highly international swimming club. Swimmers of all genders, sexual orientations, age groups, and nationalities train with us.
The official language of the club is (Swiss) German. Training sessions are mainly conducted in High German, with a bit of English here and there. As we are so international and not everyone speaks/understands German, we adapt and help one another.
We are an active club that participates in various international LGBTQ+ swimming competitions throughout the year (Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona, Lisbon, Frankfurt and of course the EuroGames and GayGames). These competitions are fun and suitable for all swimming levels.

Want to swim with us? Then dive in!

Our Training

We offer five swimming sessions per week. During these sessions, we practice all four swimming strokes (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly) and complete a variety of structured training sets — adapted to different skill levels.
Our trainings are led by a dedicated team of experienced coaches: Maya (she/her), Rahel (she/her), Senata (she/her), and Sergio (he/him). The sessions in the 50-meter pool are significantly more demanding than those in the 25-meter pool.

For trans and intersex people who would like to go swimming in a safe environment without participating in a swim training session, we recommend the TINA+ swimming session every Tuesday from 8–9 pm (except during school holidays).

Admission criteria

We do not accept complete beginners.

Newcomers must already have some swimming experience and be able to swim at least (!) 100m crawl, 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke in one go

Important: Before your first visit, you should read the swimming pool rules and the abbreviations of our swimming program, which you will find attached as a PDF below.

Documents

Abkuerzungen.pdf 98 KB
Rules-of-the-Pool.pdf 208 KB

Our 5 weekly training sessions:

Monday 12 am - 1 pm

Hallenbad Oerlikon (50m pool)

1 lane available, bring along: Fins and 5-franc coin for the locker, regular entrance fee.

Wednesday 8 - 9 pm

Hallenbad Oerlikon (50m pool)

2 lanes available, bring along: Fins and 5-franc coin for the locker, regular entrance fee.

Sunnday 10.30 - 11.30 am

Hallenbad Oerlikon (50m pool)

1 lane available, bring along: Fins and 5-franc coin for the locker, regular entrance fee.

Changing room situation in Oerlikon
In Oerlikon, we swim during public opening hours. This means that we don't have changing rooms and showers to ourselves. There are changing rooms for ‘women’ and ‘men’ as well as for families with a few individual cabins. The showers are for “women” and “men”, each with a few individual showers with curtains.

Monday 7.30 - 8.30 pm

Hallenbad Bläsi (25m pool)

[currently full]
2 lanes available, bring along: 2-franc coin for the locker, free entry.

Friday 8–9.15 pm

Hallenbad Bläsi (25m pool)

Entire pool (5 lanes) available, bring along: Fins and 2-franc coin for the locker, free entry.


 

 

Changing room situation at Bläsi
At Bläsi, we have two changing rooms and showers (one for ‘women‘ and one for ‘men‘), which we sometimes share with athletes from other clubs. In the changing rooms there are individual cubicles with curtains. The showers are large-surface showers, whereby individual cubicles in the ‘women's’ shower can be separated with a curtain. Additionally, there is a shower in the pool hall at the edge of the pool. Together with our trans and non-binary members, we find individual solutions.

Agenda

Schwimmen 50m, Ausdauer - Rahel
Mi 24.06.2026 20:00 - 21:00
  • Ort
    Hallenbad Oerlikon, Wallisellenstrasse 100, 8050 Zürich, Schweiz
  • Text

    Niveau – mittel und lang

Schwimmen 25m, Technik & Allround - Senata
Fr 26.06.2026 20:00 - 21:15
  • Ort
    Hallenbad Bläsi, Limmattalstrasse 154, 8049 Zürich, Schweiz
  • Text

    Niveau    –  alle
    Bahnen   –  5
    Material  –  Flossen (weiteres Equipment fakultativ)

Schwimmen
So 28.06.2026 10:30 - 11:30
  • Ort
    Hallenbad Oerlikon, Wallisellenstrasse 100, 8050 Zürich, Schweiz
  • Text

    Niveau   – alle
    Bahnen  – 1
    Material     – Flossen (weiteres Equipment fakultatitv)

Weitere Einträge

Do you have further questions?

You can always contact me on my cell phone at 079 786 03 05 (e.g. WhatsApp) or by email at bastien@rainbowsport.ch if you need more information.

Are you trans/non-binary or intersex and have specific questions? If so, Alecs (alecs@rainbowsport.ch, no pronoun preference) will be happy to help you feel as comfortable as possible and have fun swimming with us.

We look forward to swimming with you soon and hope you enjoy being part of our Sea Lions family.

Bastien & The Sea Lions' family

Your participation in swimming


CHF 170.00/year

plus basic membership