Olympic swimming hopeful touts importance of water safety
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowChase Kalisz won the gold medal for Team USA in the 400 meter individual relay during the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. As Indianapolis prepares to host the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis this month, Kalisz is hoping to earn a spot in his third Olympic games.
Kalisz is also doing his part to draw attention to water safety, which is the focus of a program presented by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. called Swim IN Safety.
The program is already halfway to its goal of teaching 50,000 Hoosiers to be water safe by the end of this year with skills including self rescue, basic swimming and confidence around water.
“We all deserve access to being water safe, and that’s one of the great parts about being partnered with Lilly is they’re [sponsoring] a swimming and safety program, which will provide swimming lessons to kids ages five and up and teach them water safety,” Kalisz said. “There’s a lot of kids out there that have drowned, unfortunately, and it’s because of lack of water safety.”
Kalisz said his love for swimming began in a similar program at just four years old, proving that any swimming student could be tomorrow’s Olympian. But he noted that learning to swim is important for any circumstance.
“Think about just going to the beach with your family and your loved ones, and you want your kids to be able to enjoy the water and have no real worry about them not being able to swim,” he said. “I think we all deserve to be able to be comfortable in the water.”
Kalisz is now turning his attention to Indianapolis and the chance to head to Paris for the Summer Olympics. At the Toyko games, the pandemic meant only his teammates could be in the stands, and he’s ready for a much bigger pool party at swimming trials in Indy.
“I think it’s going to be such an incredible environment being in the Colts stadium, something that’s never been done before in swimming,” he said. “It’s going to be the biggest swimming attendance, hopefully, that we’ve ever seen in the sport.”
Indianapolis is a place that’s been good to Kalisz. He said he’s done between 15 and 20 meets in Indy, where he won his first NCAA Championship and was on his first world championship team.
“I think it’s going to be a great thing. I think it’s going to certainly push boundaries on what’s possible with our sport and open up the capacity to a bunch of people that casually aren’t really exposed to what we do day in and day out, especially for the pinnacle of our sport.”
You can learn more about the Swim IN Safety program by clicking here.
We’ll have more on the preparations for the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials in Indianapolis on this weekend’s edition of Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.