Three years ago, Shana Ferguson was delighted as she stood on the pool deck in Omaha, Nevada, at the U.S. Olympic Trials, looking out at a crowd of more than 12,000 swimming fans. But she dreamed bigger.
It’s much bigger.
“What would this look like in a soccer stadium?” Ferguson wondered aloud.
Three years and countless meetings on electrical engineering, plumbing and drainage later, the surprise finally turned into reality. Ferguson, USA Swimming’s chief commercial officer, and her team of suppliers are just days away from kicking off the most important quadrennial swimming competition on American soil. It is expected to be the largest crowd ever to attend a swimming meet.
The upcoming U.S. Olympic Qualifiers will be held June 15-23 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, marking the first time an Olympic qualifier game has been held in a football stadium. Event organizers are hoping to attract close to 30,000 spectators on the first night of the finals, which would break the previous world record.
To put it mildly, it will be a spectacle.
“This is the first of its kind in the world,” said Mark Dodd, president of Dodd Technologies, which served as USA Swimming’s general contractor for the event. “A lot of people will come here and take a look at what we’ve created. “We will be the model.”
Ferguson added: “We need to give these players an incredible experience that, for many, will be the pinnacle of their careers. “We have a responsibility to make this an absolutely damn awesome environment for them.”
It all started, surprisingly, with the pool itself, which was built over the past three weeks, with construction starting on May 12 and wrapping up this week. Nearly 2 million gallons of water flowed in from the nearby White River. It is then kept in tanks where it can be continuously circulated, cleaned and chlorinated before entering and exiting three constructed pools.
“If you see this on TV, it will look like an underground pool, like the pool is at the bottom,” Ferguson said. “But we’re putting an in-ground pool on cement and building a deck around it. The decked pool will actually cover the first 10 rows of seats.”
Increasing the pool deck and fan perceived ground level will create sufficient depth for the three pools needed. One is a competition pool 50 meters long and 3 meters deep – the standard depth for elite swimming – where all eyes will be trained for nine nights. The other two are warm-up pools, separated from the game pool by a curtain at the 50-yard line.
Myrtha Pools, a company specializing in the construction and demolition of large-scale temporary swimming pools, built a competition pool and two warm-up pools. Spear Corp., near Rochdale, Indiana, handled all piping, pumping and filtration work. Dodd’s team is specifically responsible for decks, scoreboards, signage, and all other equipment needed to put on an event.
“Really, our biggest challenge was to figure out what is traditionally a close-up spectator sport in a small indoor pool and scale it up to work in a space of this size,” Dodd said.
That means USA Swimming is trying to keep up with the surging demand. The event continues to grow with each Olympic cycle and outgrow its venue. The last time trial was held in Indianapolis in 2000, with the event held at the 4,700-seat Indiana University swimming pool. The trials then moved outdoors to Long Beach, California in 2004, and then moved to a basketball court in downtown Omaha, Nebraska from 2008 to 2021. (Myrtha Pools also built a pool in Long Beach and four in Omaha.) In 2016, about 200,000 fans attended 15 sold-out sessions. The stadium can accommodate approximately 13,000 people for swimming events.
The main pool is pictured under construction at Lucas Oil Stadium, with temporary seating to the left and a warm-up pool structure beyond. (Photo courtesy of USA Swimming)
Lucas Oil Stadium can seat a lot more than that. The swimming configuration can accommodate approximately 30,000 people, including regular stadium seating facing the competition pool and approximately 20 rows of movable seating positioned in front of the midfield curtain to create a fully enclosed oval fan. Organizers have planned theme nights, including Father’s Day and June 1st celebrations to be held during the event. They have also partnered with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and the WNBA’s Fever to help attract new fans who may not yet know much about swimming.
There will certainly be seats further away from the water, but Dodd said sightlines from the 25,000-plus stands are pretty good.
“It might be weird or unusual, but it will be different,” said University of Virginia coach Todd Desorbo, who will coach the U.S. women’s team in Paris. “The more people, the better,” she said. And I think the kids will absorb the energy of the crowd.”
The night’s session will be a memorable one, event organizers say, as fans will be able to see the top two finishers punch their tickets to Paris. There will be a 50-foot video board behind the players as they are announced, and they will walk onto the pool deck before each final. Ferguson compared it to player introductions on “Monday Night Football.” Dodd said the lighting and production will be similar to WWE. There will also be a center-mounted scoreboard (similar to a basketball stadium) since scoring and timing will need to be in the center of the pool rather than where the video boards are on the football field along the perimeter.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of a soccer stadium is the installation of a warm-up pool. In Omaha, the warm-up pool was located in the convention center due to space constraints inside the stadium. In Indianapolis, it will be a curtain away from the competitive pool.
“What I’m most excited about is actually creating space,” said University of Texas coach Bob Bowman, famous for coaching Michael Phelps. He will put Olympic hopefuls to the test again. “In Omaha, it was so crowded that I stopped going into the main pool or watching the races because I couldn’t get there quickly enough for people to warm up and warm up. So I just watched it on the big screen in the warm-up pool.
“This will be a good thing for the participants.”
The in-house athlete experience, Ferguson says, will include quiet areas, massages, therapy dogs, nutritional support, mental health specialists and even a video game room.
“A lot of this is nerves and hopes and dreams,” Ferguson said. “We have to ensure that even in big stadiums, we give athletes and coaches a sense of intimacy and give them quiet, solitude and focus, and not just big lights and Hollywood and excitement.”
In short, this isn’t just about putting a swimming pool on a soccer field and figuring out where and how to drain the water. This is a new use for places that must serve numerous purposes for multiple stakeholders at the same time.
And in a week, it will be put to the ultimate test like the best American swimmers.
Artist’s rendering of the finished product with fans. Lucas Oil Stadium will be the first soccer stadium to host a U.S. Olympic trials in swimming. (provided by USA Swimming)
(Top picture: Dan Goldfarb / athletic; Photo: USA Swimming, Michael Allio / Icon Sportswire, via Getty)
