By: Austin Chau

The for the 2024 Olympics swimming trials commenced on June 15 in the newly renovated Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The swim team’s chief officer and the swim team have an important day ahead of themselves. This day will determine whether they make it Paris.

After countless meetings and arrangements for the Lucas Oil Stadium, they converted the football field into an Olympic pool. It took three weeks to renovate the stadium. They used water from the nearby White River and rearranged the electrical wires from the football stadium to be used for the pool.

Many people are ecstatic about the renovations. “This is the first time this has ever been attempted in the world,” said Mark Dodd, a general contractor. In addition, he feels confident in the reconstruction and said he wants this to be an example to the other contractors. Shana Ferguson, an Olympic swimmer, also expresses joy by saying she wants the athletes to feel like this is the zenith of their swimming career.

The swimming arena will have many features similar to other athletic stadiums. The announcers will introduce the competitors like introducing the main character in a book, fascinating lighting like in WWE, and a scoreboard like basketball hung onto the ceiling of the arena. The athletes are provided with luxuries such as therapy dogs, video game rooms, quiet areas to rest or do yoga, and an area which provides swimmers the nutrients they need.

The Olympics were moved to different venues as swimming grew in popularity, unable to hold all the fans that wanted to watch. It started from a 4,500-seat venue in Indianapolis University to Lucas Oil Stadium, which holds around 30,000 fans. Olympic swimming continues to exceed its numbers of spectators with each coming year, displaying the efforts and tenacity of the people who helped get swimming to the place it is today.

Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5538777/2024/06/04/lucas-oil-stadium-pool-swimming-olympic-trials/?source=nyt_sports