Out-of-towners give early praise for Indy’s turn as swim trials host

Indianapolis is getting early praise for its go at hosting the Olympic swim trials in an NFL stadium for the first time.

Aside from breaking a world record for most spectators to attend an indoor swimming event—20,689 ticket holders were on-hand for the first round of semifinals and finals races Saturday night—the city is impressing Indiana residents and out-of-town guests alike as it hosts the event.

Boston resident Laura Hoover is in Indianapolis to watch her son, Gerhardt Hoover, race in the 400 individual medley. She said while she and her other children, Charlotte and Annabelle—also swimmers—will be spending most of their time at Lucas Oil Stadium, they’ve been to Indianapolis in the past for meets and have enjoyed the city on previous trips.

She said Lucas Oil Stadium is a fitting stage for the trials ahead of the 2024 Paris Games. This year’s trials are the first Hoover and her family have attended.

“I just think it’s incredible, and Indianapolis is doing an awesome job with this,” Hoover told IBJ. “It’s incredible just to watch the hard work and dedication that goes into this sport pay off, it’s just so incredible, I could cry—I do cry actually.”

Randall Jorczak, a swim dad from Munster, Indiana, said he is also impressed by Indianapolis, and is hopeful that Chicago will take notes from the city on how to host big events. His 12-year-old son is a swimmer with the Munster Swim Club, which brought nearly 200 swimmers to Saturday’s evening session.

“I just think it’s awesome,” he said of the event being hosted at Lucas Oil Stadium. “I’ve been wishing Chicago would do something similar so they can host more events. And the crowd is good. The announcers have done a good job of trying to get the fans more vocal, so the swimmers can feel the excitement, because you want that loud atmosphere.”

Patrick Talty, president of the Indiana Sports Corp., which is assisting the sport’s national governing body USA Swimming in hosting this year’s trials, said it is “fulfilling” to see the organization’s hard work come to fruition, particularly as Indianapolis set a new high-water mark for attendance.

“It is really meaningful because it shows the work that we’ve done for the last three years working on this event,” he said. “It shows so many people care [about the sport], so it’s incredibly fulfilling and so exciting, and I’m glad we did it and that Indy can say we did it first.”

While ticket sales have lagged behind expectations over the past few weeks, Talty said he expects the record, and the wall-to-wall primetime television coverage on NBC, will be “the best commercial” to drive those sales higher as the week goes on. Olympians will be named to the team each night through June 23.

“It’s just going to continue the momentum,” he said. “We saw a good walk up today and we’re just going to continue that.”

He also said the size of Lucas Oil Stadium gives USA Swimming the ability to welcome in more clubs, like the one from Munster and others from Fishers and Carmel that also had young swimmers filling the seats on Saturday.

“One of the goals we set out when we decided to put this in [an] NFL Stadium was to expand the access of swimming, And the reason we wanted to [do that] was to … give more kids an opportunity to see the event,” he said. “In Omaha, unfortunately it would sell out very quickly and the swim clubs wouldn’t have access to purchase tickets. That’s also why we went out and secured pools [across central Indiana] so these swim clubs could practice in the mornings, and then come down here and be inspired and hopefully become future Olympians.”

Saturday was an exciting night for swimmers with ties to Indiana.

Aaron Shackell of Carmel took first place in the finals of men’s 400 freestyle Saturday night at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to qualify for this year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Luke Whitlock of Noblesville, who was the top qualifier in the men’s 400-meter freestyle event during preliminary heats Saturday, finished fifth in the finals.