By: Yiling Sun

Shana Ferguson, USA Swimming’s chief commercial officer, let her imagination fly as she watched the athletes below swim. Could a football stadium turn into a pool?

She had been excitedly standing on the pool deck in Omaha, Nebraska, at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Three years later, Ferguson’s dream became reality after countless meetings discussing various measures of building a pool in such a big football stadium as the Lucas Oil Stadium. Finally, the U.S. Olympic Trials were set to run the stadium’s brand-new pool from June 15th to 23rd. That means it’s been only three days since the trials started. But this Olympics qualifier is different in a surprising way because almost 30,000 people are watching the meet in the vast stadium.

Dodd Technologies, serving as USA Swimming’s general contractor for the event, played a crucial role in this incredible, large-scale event. Mark Dodd, the president of Dodd Technologies, oversaw the construction of an impressive swimming pool. This company’s contribution helped Ferguson complete her imagination.

“This is the first time this has ever been attempted in the world,” Dodd said. “There will be a lot of people who are going to come to this and take a look at what we built. We’re going to be the model.”

Ferguson hoped that the athletes competing this year would have an amazing experience. She felt she had “a responsibility to make this a really wickedly cool environment for them.”

The huge pool was built over the past three weeks. Construction began on May 12th. The building team took nearly 12 gallons of water for this pool from the nearby river, the White River. That water was then filtered, chlorinated, and used for the pool. That’s a whole lot of water!

The blueprint didn’t just contain one single pool; it had three. One was for competing, and the other two were the warmup pools. These pools had to be big to ensure enough swimming space for all the hard-working athletes.

Many companies helped with this extraordinary project. Myrtha Pools built the three pools, and Spear Corporation dealt with all the wet work: plumbing, pumping, and filtering the water. Dodd’s team, Dodd Technologies, worked on the decks, the huge scoreboard, and other elements that needed to be used during the event.

“Really, our biggest challenge was trying to figure out what is traditionally a close-up spectator sport in a small natatorium and scaling it so that it works in a space of this size,” Dodd said.

Taking advantage of the huge stadium, the warmup pools were larger than other warmup pools. In Omaha, the warmup pools were squeezed next to the competition pool since the space was restricted there. In Lucas Oil Stadium, a huge curtain separates the warmup pool and the competition pool. This helps the competing athletes stay focused on their race and not constantly see other random athletes they don’t know warming up.

Ferguson thought of everything to keep the athletes comfortable at the stadium and paid extra attention their “back-of-house” experience. There will be so many fun and relaxing things to do outside of the pool including a video game room, therapy dogs, massages, nutritional assistance, mental health areas, and simple and peaceful quiet areas.

“So much of this [competing] is nerves and hopes and dreams,” Ferguson said. “We’ve got to ensure even in a big stadium that we are still giving the athletes and coaches a feeling of intimacy, where they can have quiet and solitude and focus so that it isn’t just big lights and Hollywood and excitement.”

This amazing pool isn’t simply a random football stadium converted into a pool. It’s a place that athletes will love, especially the curtain separating the two types of pools and the relaxing area. I mean, just imagine a bunch of tired swimmers playing video games together!