Never before has an entire city been transformed into a venue for a swimming competition. From one's first steps off an arriving plane in Indianapolis, you are regaled with super-sized imagery of competitors in action, floors surfaced with water patterns and lane lines, and a myriad of signs with shout-outs to the over 1,000 qualifiers for the 2024 Swimming Olympic Trials to take place in a pro football stadium.

Downtown is equally dressed with giant billboards, banners covering the sides of high-rise buildings and even the streets renamed for our swimming heroes of the past and present.

Concurrent with the Trials, United States Masters Swimming was invited (told) to hold our 2024 Spring National Championships in the nearby IUPUI Natatorium. Over 2,500 members registered to participate in the 5-day meet. Indy is no stranger to orchestrating championships having done so eight times, and they put on a near flawless event. Short of someone pulling the fire alarm and evacuation of the building, the meet ran on time, was superbly administered, and the pool was especially fast.

Most attendees to our Nationals took the opportunity to attend the Trials, some daily over its nine-day run and some just once or twice to appreciate the spectacle. These Trials were quite a production. A rock concert like presentation themed around swimming. If the dynamics of the races and all that Rowdy brings to watching them is your purpose, TV is the place to be. But as a never to be forgotten theatrical experience, this was a beyond amazing show. Laser lights, cheerleaders, mascots, music, and other entertainment between events kept everyone's rapt attention. But perhaps most awe-inspiring was the size of the audience.

The temporary pool was constructed in the Indianapolis Colts 70,000 seat stadium. It was oriented to accommodate over 30,000. Watching the star struck crowd in these monumental surroundings proved as engaging as the races themselves. The magnitude of the place as a venue for a swim meet was overwhelming, with seating on one side rising to the equivalent of an 8-story building. Swimmers looked like ants but the jumbotrons let you view what one sees on TV. Regardless, no one left the stadium without knowing they had witnessed something unprecedent in the history of swimming.

The success of these Trials means the formula will be repeated at the 2028 Los Angeles Games with swimming to be held in Sofi Stadium. And Indy is sure to want to host the Trials one again.

Indy creates the lure of Paris for visitors to the Olympic trials

Scenes from the Olympic Trials in Lucas Oil Stadium