INDIANAPOLIS — Swimming superstar Katie Ledecky has punched her ticket to Paris and her fourth Olympic team.
In Indianapolis Saturday night, Ledecky, a seven-time gold medalist, won the 2024 U.S. Olympic swim trials final in the women’s 400m freestyle, clinching a spot on Team USA. Paige Madden finished second, but has not yet qualified.
In the men’s 400m freestyle final, 19-year-old Aaron Shackell was victorious is also Paris-bound.
It will be the first Olympics for Shackell, the son of Nick Shackell, who represented Great Britain in swimming at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
“Ever since I learned my dad was an Olympian, I’ve always wanted to be an Olympian myself,” Aaron Shackell said, adding for a while he wasn’t especially good at the sport and didn’t like it. “It’s unbelievable to be honest.”
The 400m finals capped off the first day of an unprecedented U.S. Olympic swim trials.
For the first time, USA Swimming staged the event inside an NFL stadium. An Indianapolis Colts redzone inside Lucas Oil Stadium was transformed into the trials’ competition pool. The massive venue allows for 30,000 fans to watch at once, according to organizers, as some of the world’s best athletes compete at an event arguably more nerve-racking than the Olympics themselves.
“This is way more intense than the Olympic games because it’s so hard to make the Olympics, and you throw in this monstrosity and it’s going to put the pressure on them in a big way,” said 3-time gold medalist and NBC Sports analyst Rowdy Gaines.
In her semifinal heat Saturday, Gretchen Walsh set a world record in the 100m butterfly with 55.18 — the first world record set at trials since Michael Phelps did so in 2008.
Opening night, with primetime coverage on NBC, drew an in-person attendance of about 20,000, the largest crowd to see a night of swimming, according to announcers.
Putting together this nine-day event took weeks, according to USA Swimming Chief Commercial Officer Shana Ferguson, who said 1.8 million gallons of water was pumped into the stadium and is constantly recycling to keep the temporary competition and warmup pools filled.
With more than a week to go, hundreds of elite athletes will continue fighting for the chance to represent the U.S. Some are eying their first Olympics.
“There’s no such thing as a past Olympian or a former Olympian. Once you make a team that last for a lifetime,” Gaines said. “And that will never be able to be taken away from you.”
