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Indianapolis has been selected to host the 2028 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, multiple sources familiar with the matter told IBJ.
USA Swimming and Indiana Sports Corp. are expected to announce the city’s plans for the event Tuesday, although some specifics are still being ironed out, three sources said. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The 2028 Swim Trials are tentatively expected to occur in mid-June and run for up to nine days at Lucas Oil Stadium, according to the sources. The event will determine who will compete on the men’s and women’s U.S. Olympic swimming teams.
The announcement is scheduled for Tuesday morning, at which time additional details are expected to be made public, sources said.
USA Swimming’s decision to return to Indianapolis wasn’t without its challenges, sources said, as it had to contend with a busy calendar for the city’s tourism industry. Likewise, the national governing body hasn’t yet named a new CEO after the departure of Tim Hinchey III last August.
The announcement coincides with the start of the USA Swimming’s Toyota National Championships at the IU Natatorium on June 4. That event will feature hundreds of swimmers—among them, world-record holders and Olympians—and will help determine rosters for world competitions.
Lucas Oil Stadium hosted the 2024 Swim Trials in June 2024, drawing record crowds and becoming the first professional football stadium to host a swim meet.
The nine-day event set attendance records, including 20,689 spectators for the event’s opening night—the most ever for a swim meet—only to have the record broken eight days later at the finals, which drew a crowd of 22,209.
Overall, the 2024 Swim Trials recorded 285,000 spectators across all its sessions, a 60% increase from the previous record set during its 2016 event in Omaha, Nebraska. It also had record attendance for its fan event, the AquaZone, at the Indiana Convention Center.
The plan for Lucas Oil Stadium to once again host the event comes as another NFL facility, So-Fi Stadium in Inglewood, California, is preparing to host swimming during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Sources previously told IBJ that the decisions by USA Swimming and the International Olympic Committee decision to host their swim events at football venues were independent from one other, and the Olympics decision was made prior to Indianapolis being picked for the 2024 Swim Trials.
USA Swimming did not return a call requesting comment Friday morning. The city of Indianapolis and the Capital Improvement Board of Marion County, which manages Lucas Oil Stadium, deferred to Indiana Sports Corp., which declined to comment.
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A second return from retirement from Blake Pieroni???
Well of course we were!