‘Blew Away Our Expectations:’ Lucas Oil Stadium Gets Rave Reviews as Olympic Trials Host
It was going to take something special for Blake Pieroni to get back into the water. Pieroni is 28, getting married in August and balancing a commute from his training base of Bloomington to a job in Indianapolis at a private equity real estate firm.
If there wasn’t something intrinsically special on the docket – something not subject to the whims of international qualification, for instance – Pieroni wouldn’t have gotten back into training last spring to mount a charge at the 2024 Olympics.
That special feeling, even more than a chance to get to the Paris Games, was the opportunity to swim close to home in what Pieroni hoped would be the grandest stage his sport had ever been on.
“The set up to this meet is so important for the growth of the sport long-term,” Pieroni said Sunday in Indy. “We need to have events like this to draw in people from outside the sport. That is the only way the sport is going to grow. These events are so important. I wanted to swim in this meet because it was in Lucas Oil Stadium.”
Pieroni is one of many swimmers to share that sentiment last week at U.S. Olympic Trials. As much as the slew of firsts and mosts set by the attendance at Lucas Oil Stadium paint of picture of the atmosphere, the swimmers also testify to their sport taking a big swing and connecting.
Lucas Oil Stadium; Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
All told, more than 285,000 fans entered the gates at the home of the Indianapolis Colts. That’s a 60 percent increase on the previous best for a Trials meet. Add in the luxury suites, brand activations and fan experiences, and more people than ever had their eyes on – and spent their money on – swimming.
Among the records is twice setting the record for most fans at an indoor swimming meet in history, set on the meet’s opening Saturday at 20,689 and broken Wednesday at 22,209. Sunday’s prelims session set a record with 17,697 in the stands.
USA Swimming President and CEO Tim Hinchey said that the average attendance at the Rio Olympics finals sessions of around 16,000 was an aim. The attendance at finals exceeded 18,000 on five of nine nights. No session’s attendance dipped under 13,000.
Hinchey lauded the embrace from the city of Indianapolis and the state of Indiana, a vital partner. After four straight Trials meets in Omaha, Nebraska, USA Swimming had the chance to sell walk-up tickets for sessions, a novel phenomenon, and managed to draw nothing but respectable crowds nightly with more than double the seats to fill.
With the temporary pool, Lucas Oil could be the blueprint for opening Trials to other venues down the road. He talked up the need for USA Swimming to press the momentum off of this success.
“Once you take something to the next level, it’s hard to kind of go backwards,” he said. “So I think we’ve set an expectation. And there’s a lot of things we’ve learned from this, there’s a lot of things we can do better. And I’m excited about that prospect.”
He’ll get backing in that regard from the swimmers. Simone Manuel’s comments about her warm embrace from the crowd stood out, certainly amplified for the veteran and three-time Olympian by the number of people. On the way to her third Olympics, Evansville native and Bloomington-trained Lilly King used the home-state showing as a “this is what we do” endorsement of Indiana swimming.
Any worries about the suitability of a temporary pool never came to pass.
“The venue is fantastic,” Caeleb Dressel said. “You’ve probably heard it a million times from people. The one thing y’all don’t get to partake in is the pool. It is one of the most beautiful pools I’ve been in. I’ve swum in some amazing venues, and being in a football stadium is awesome, but I cannot stress how beautiful, how clean, it tastes good – I know that sounds weird – everything about the water, it is a beautiful pool.”
“It’s been awesome. I think it blew away all of our expectations,” Katie Ledecky said. “I think just walking in the first day it was incredible to see how it came together. Once it filled up with people, it made us all even happier. It’s just really neat to walk out of that tunnel every night for finals or even for prelims races and hear the excitement that everyone has. To see little kids in the stands with posters and big smiles and cheering really loud, I mean, that’s what it’s all about.”
I look forward to seeing the overall financials from this. Big venues = big money. Tickets were cheap if you went last minute.