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Luke Whitlock of Noblesville was the top qualifier in the men’s 400-meter freestyle event during preliminary heats Saturday at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Lucas Oil Stadium, meaning he’ll swim Saturday night for a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Paris.
Alex and Aaron Shackell—siblings from Carmel—were also among top qualifiers in their respective events on Saturday.
Whitlock, who swims for the Fishers Area Swimming Tigers club, shattered his previous best time in the event, finishing on Saturday at 3 minutes, 46.42 seconds. He will swim two lanes away from Aaron Shackell of the Carmel Swim Cub who qualified fourth (3:47.96).
Olympic medalists Kieran Smith and Bobby Finke also advanced to the evening final, with Smith posting the sixth-fastest time (3:48.25) and Finke claiming the last of eight spots (3:48.63).
Katie Ledecky also got off to a rousing start Saturday, blowing away the field in the preliminaries of the 400-meter women’s freestyle, touching the wall with a time of 3 minutes, 59.99 seconds.
Ledecky finished nearly five seconds ahead of Paige Madden, who was next fastest at 4:04.83.
The top eight advanced to the evening final, with Ledecky an overwhelming favorite to claim a spot on her fourth Olympic team.
Also on Saturday, Gretchen Walsh was top qualifier in the prelims of the women’s 100-meter butterfly with an impressive time of 55.94 seconds, beating out Torri Huske (56.26) and Regan Smith (56.68).
Alex Shackell of the Carmel Swim Club qualified fourth with a time of 57.07 seconds.
The top 16 advanced to the evening semifinals. The top eight swimmers from those two heats will compete in the 100 fly finals on Sunday.
On the men’s side, Nic Fink led the way in the prelims of the 100 breaststroke at 59.24. Josh Matheny (59.34), Charlie Swanson (59.44), Jake Foster (59.59) and Michael Andrew (59.72) also made it down and back in less than a minute.
For Ledecky, the 400 was the first of four freestyle events she is set to swim in Indianapolis, where the trials are being held in one end of massive Lucas Oil Stadium. The facility can hold up to 32,000 fans per session, though it wasn’t close to that figure for the opening morning of the nine-day trials.
The 27-year-old Ledecky came into the trials with the top-seeded time in the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyle events.
She already has six individual Olympic gold medals—more than any female swimmer in the history of the sport—and she’ll be looking to add to that haul in Paris.
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