My oldest (10) is a swimming machine. He’s on two teams and swims nearly every day and loves it.
The USA Swim team is currently holding their 2024 Olympic Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
That’s a 3 hour drive for us so it was a no brainer. On top of that one of my favorite people in the world and forum member osuchem lives there.
So called him up to see if he was interested and he was. Grabbed some tickets a few weeks ago and went lastnight to the opening night.
Watched Men’s and Women’s 100m Butterfly and Men’s and Women’s 400 meter Freestyle. Not going to lie was more going for my son and did not really expect myself to be overly entertained. Well, I was wrong on that it was an absolute blast. Lucas Oil Stadium is awesome and having an Olympic size pool in there was just way cool.
To top is off we got to see a new WORLD RECORD set in the Women’s 100 meter Butterfly. It was absolutely electrifying something my son and I will certainly remember for a lifetime.

It's a great sport I'm glad you and your son enjoy it and got to see the women's fly record broken!
My wife and I watched it for years. Our daughter started swimming competitive about 8 and did so through college at UNC.

That’s super cool how they were able to put an Olympic sized pool in there. Were they able to get it to the right depth? I remember in years past that some records were not allowed because the depth of the pool was not correct. I don’t remember if a shallower pool was beneficial or detrimental to the times but when you’re talking thousands of second apparently it does have an affect.

It was full depth.
I linked a YouTube Video of the time lapse of it being built but it’s not showing for some reason.

There are also 2 25m practice pools behind the curtain.
1,000,000 gallons of water among the three.

I saw that on TV, she did it in prelims, correct?

My son has been improving and going to some of the better meets. Several Olympic swimmers were at the last one in Ocala trying to make the Olympic Trial cuts. Two time Olympic Gold Medalist Bobby Finke warmed up in the same lane as my son.

She did it in the 2nd Semifinals.

I never swam competitively as a kid and this is his 2nd season on a team so I/we are still learning a lot.

We went to Trials in Omaha in 2012 to watch our middle daughter swim and it was packed. I am surprised you could get last minute tickets.

In one of her events, she swam against Elizabeth Beisel. Another, Missy Franklin. Those ladies were beasts in the water and very gracious talking with fans.

I am glad your son snoops the sport and hop he sticks with it. It definitely takes a lot of commitment.

Swimming paid for our daughters bachelors and masters degrees.

Forum member GeeTen officiated several meets our daughter was in.

The time lapse was fascinating. I kept watching, and re-watching, to see how they filled the pool. Never did see it.

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To top is off we got to see a new WORLD RECORD set in the Women’s 100 meter Butterfly. It was absolutely electrifying something my son and I will certainly remember for a lifetime.

Very cool.

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That’s super cool how they were able to put an Olympic sized pool in there.

Yeah, wow.
To build a temporary structure to hold that much water is impressive.

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Originally posted by TMats:
The time lapse was fascinating. I kept watching, and re-watching, to see how they filled the pool. Never did see it.

Around the 50-55 second mark there is a pump in the corner of the pool filling it. I am guessing there are pumps in the other corners as well that ran for days.

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Originally posted by chellim1:
Yeah, wow.
To build a temporary structure to hold that much water is impressive.

That’s a whole shit load of FlexSeal!

I really want to go to this as we are a swimming family, I'm currently wearing a HS team shirt from the 80's!

Also watch for Leah Hayes, she is from a club near us and has been a phenom since she was 10 or 11.

The pool is by Myrtha, they build a ton of them.

Glad you enjoyed the trials. I would suggest you become an official if your boy sticks with it. I enjoyed being on deck for my girls rather than deal with the idiot parents in the stands. you are up close to the action and get free food!

If you ever have any questions on swimming, reach out. I'm in the western suburbs of Chicago, if we are close happy to meet for lunch to discuss

That’s cool that your son got to see the World record and American being set. I assume that she made the Olympic team ?

From several friends who’s kids swim at the high school level a meet seems to be several high school teams show up to a host school with a pool ( my high school had Olympic pool and dive platforms) and there is a LOT and I mean a LOT of sitting and waiting for your event trials that will last maybe a minute ? One family we knew from scouts, the kid would swim like 5,000-10,000 yards PER DAY for practice. Good way for a young man to get a great looking upper body. That much swimming requires a lot of calories. Be prepared for the food bill

My 2 kids were swimmers from age 4 thru college. Also water polo. Both got scholarships. And both had trials in WP at the Olympic Training Center. Being a swim dad was one of the best things in my life.

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Originally posted by Black92LX:
She did it in the 2nd Semifinals.

That’s right. She had a personal best, PB, in the prelims.

Glaf you guys got to see it in person.