By: Claire Zhou

On June 15-23, 2024, this year’s U.S. Swimming Olympic Trials will be in the Lucas Oil Stadium of Indianapolis, Indiana. A huge swimming pool was built in the stadium to host this event. Organizers are expecting to see a crowd of almost 30,000 on only the first night, with more to come in the following nine days.

For the first time ever, the trials were held in a football stadium. Mark Dodd, president of Dodd Technologies said, “This is the first time this has ever been attempted in the world. 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.”

Construction began on May 12, with the pool built in just three weeks. Instead of digging down and building the pool, the construction team created an above ground pool and built a deck surrounding it. Water from the nearby White River was transported to the pool, with a total of almost two million gallons.

The trial requires three pools, two for warmup and one that would be the spotlight of the trial. The pool stretches 50 meters long and three meters deep, with the warmup section separated by a curtain.

The U.S. Olympic Trials only continue to grow, with more people coming every year. The Lucas Oil Stadium can seat more than any other with a capacity of 30,000 seats. Funnily though, with the pool elevated, the first 10 rows are below pool level, so sitting there means cheering for nothing but the cement.

This might just be the next biggest venue for this event, with hundreds of people coming to watch. Everyone’s excited to see how it goes.