INDIANAPOLIS — Some of the first swimmers were able to jump into the Olympic-size pool at Lucas Oil Stadium, and Hoosiers are already loving the splash it's making downtown.
"The attraction it's brought to the city, I think is awesome with how close it came to (the Indianapolis 500), just like the attention our city has been getting has just been great because I grew up here and I love Indy," Courtney Cockrum said.
The pool is a milestone, not just for Indianapolis, but it also makes history as the first football stadium to hold a major swimming event.
"It's really cool, it's another strength that we have here in Indy. I mean, we're an event town, we do this kind of stuff for a living. We do this every day," Indianapolis resident Bryan Shepard said. "You know, some cities have tourists coming in once in a while for the summer, but we have tourists 365, 24/7."
In fact, over the nine days of swim trials, 250,000 people will make their way to the stadium, according to organizers.
"We're looking to have 7,000 volunteer shifts over the next nine or 10 days coming up here, so we need a ton of help, and no one shows up for big events like Indianapolis does, and volunteers are the secret sauce in making all these really large-scale events happen," said Dan Gilet, who works for Indiana Sports Corp.
And while the people behind the event hope to get things checked off their list of to-do's come Saturday, one man was able to accomplish something he had only dreamed of doing — well, kind of.
"I can check off my bucket list because I got to see the Eiffel Tower," said Greg Bedan, who was sitting underneath the tower replica in downtown Indianapolis.
