What is the minimum amount of lanes in an olympic swimming pool?

Answer 1

FINA which is the world governing body for international swimming calls for a 50 Meter pool with 8 lanes. However movement is being created for having pools built with 10 lanes, with the outer 2 not being used for competition. (The waves created by swimmers bounces off the side walls and 'slows' down the swimmers in those lanes, thus an buffer is created by not using lanes 1 and 10 in competition). That said, if you are talking about size, Olympic generally refers to the length of the pool, not the number of lanes.