2024 USA Olympic Team Trial Pools
Indianapolis
Merit Award
Presented by Shiel Sexton Co.
Owner: USA Swimming; Indiana Sports Corp.
Engineer of record: Counselor-Hunsacker
Pool manufacturer: Myrtha Pools
Pool contractor: Spear Corp.
Production/decking: Dodd Technologies
Owner’s representative: Shiel Sexton Co.
Two years of planning resulted in an event that lasted just nine days and brought 285,000 fans to the city of Indianapolis, which was home to the 2024 USA Swimming Olympic Trials.
Lucas Oil Stadium is the first NFL stadium to host such an event. To make this possible, the project team used a 10-foot-tall pool deck that spanned an acre to avoid drilling into the stadium floor and included three pools for warm-up, cool-down and competition. Previous work included installing a faucet in the heating hot water system and a pipe extension for a heat exchanger that would maintain the pool temperature at the required 79°F.
Before the event and to combat possible schedule delay, the project team planned daily and hourly the main activities. The pool materials were purchased in Italy and took four weeks to travel by boat to the US. Obtaining water posed another problem. The project team determined that the most efficient way to deliver the water was to pump it into the stadium via a Capitol Avenue fire hydrant. Two million gallons of water passed through the spigot, entered a clarification pump and through a heater before being transferred to the pools.
A painstaking two-year planning and coordination effort paid off with the project on time and on budget for completion in June 2024.
