U.S. Olympic Swim Trials organizers preview June festivities in Indianapolis
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The U.S. Olympic Swim Trials will be accompanied by an attendance record, a landmark piece of public art and a free concert series, organizers said Thursday during a preview event for the June 15-23 competition at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The trials that determine 26 male swimmers and 26 female swimmers for the U.S. Olympic team will be presented in a football stadium for the first time, and NBC plans to devote nine consecutive nights of prime-time telecasts to the trials.
When temporary pools are installed at Lucas Oil Stadium, the venue’s capacity is expected to be 32,000. According to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the largest crowd for an indoor swim meet was 25,000 at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
“We are shooting for 30,000 on opening night to blow the current record out of the water,” Indiana Sports Corp. President Patrick Talty said.
Single-session tickets are now available for purchase. For daytime preliminary sessions, ticket prices range from $15 in the stadium’s 600 level to $75 in the 100 level. For evening finals sessions, tickets range from $35 in the stadium’s 600 level to $174 in the 100 level. Visit usaswimming.org for more information.
USA Swimming and Indiana Sports Corp., in conjunction with USA Swimming sponsor OneAmerica Financial, presented a “100 Days Out Celebration” on Thursday at the Indianapolis Artsgarden.
Every swimmer competing in Indianapolis aspires to make the squad representing the United States later this summer in Paris.
To visually reinforce that goal, a 66-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower will be fabricated in Indianapolis and placed at a yet-to-be-announced location downtown.
The replica tower will be made by the Indianapolis-based Latinas Welding Guild, a not-for-profit organization that supports underserved workers in skilled trades. Consuelo Lockhart, a native of Guatemala, founded the Latinas Welding Guild in 2017.
“This is the largest piece we’ve ever done,” Lockhart said of the tower. “We’re a small welding not-for-profit that gets to do something that gets national coverage and maybe even international coverage. It’s surreal, because none of us thought we could do a project like this.”
Free activities will complement the trials, including a fan experience at the Indiana Convention Center billed as the Toyota Aqua Zone. Outdoor festivities are planned on Georgia Street and part of South Meridian Street, an area collectively known as “USA Swimming Live.”
Nine nights of free concerts at USA Swimming Live will be organized by Forty5, the company that presents concerts at Broad Ripple’s Vogue venue and oversees the Rock the Ruins series at Holliday Park. Performers for the swim trials shows have yet to be announced.
A century ago, a pool in Broad Ripple Park hosted the trials in advance of the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Future “Tarzan” actor Johnny Weissmuller starred in Indianapolis and went on to win gold medals in the 100-meter freestyle and 4-by-200-meter relay races.
Colorado-based USA Swimming selected Indianapolis to host the 2024 trials above fellow finalist cities St. Louis, Minneapolis and Omaha, Nebraska.
A legacy initiative under way as part of the trials is a water safety program titled Swim IN Safety. In 2023, the program trained 25,000 Indiana residents 5 and older to be water safe. An additional 25,000 trainees is the goal for 2024.