POOL SWIM GOGGLES

A reliable set of goggles are a must to get you through all those hard yards of winter pool training. Jack Sexty tests and rates 10…

The fashion industry has a Cost Per Wear formula, in which an item is judged by how much you wear it for its price. Applied to tri, the pool goggle would surely come out on top, being a cheap piece of kit you wear year-round and subject to hundreds of hours in the pool. And yet it’s often a throwaway purchase, snapped up in the pool’s reception.

Even if pool goggle purchases are never going to break the bank, buying an unsuitable pair can be frustrating and a waste of cash that can be spent on kit elsewhere. So it’s important to check out a variety of different styles, many of which are represented in the 10 pairs featured in this test, and stick to the ones that work for you. Try on the goggles that take your fancy before buying them if possible. Or, if you can borrow a pair for a couple of lengths, then even better.

Pool goggles differ from open-water goggles in that they’re traditionally smaller, less mask-like and offer less peripheral vision. But things are changing with the former, where even competition goggles now offer greater vision. This means stronger swimmers can scout out their opposition and less experienced swimmers and those sharing public lanes can swim with more confidence thanks to wider, curved lenses. Plus, the updated shape can actually decrease drag.

Key things we looked out for when testing the goggles here included the quality of the seal, which included dive tests and fast turns during all-out sprint efforts, and also how the lenses responded to different light levels. We consulted several other swimmers to try out the test pairs, with factors such as build quality, value, ease of adjustment and anti-fogging all considered.