Lucas Oil Stadium pool delights gold medal-winning Hoosier swimmer – Indianapolis News | Weather in Indiana | Indiana traffic

INDIANAPOLIS (WISHES) – Hoosier. World Champion. Olympic gold medalist. And this year, there’s a spectator.

“I get a little bit of FOMO (fear of missing out),” Zach Apple admitted Tuesday during a visit to WISH-TV’s Daybreak.

Apple’s record-breaking swimming career included an All-American season at IU as well as tremendous international success. Now retired, he’s in Indianapolis to watch friends and former players compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, starting Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

“I was helping with some volunteer work and I got to see the pool, see the setup,” Apple told us about his first visit to the soccer field that became a temporary Olympic-sized swimming pool. “It’s amazing. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the swimming world.

Apple is excited to see how athletes and officials perform at the stadium. For example, the roof is at 270 feet, so it’s much too far for the customary painted ceiling lines that serve as guides during the dorsal movement.

“I was a freestyler, so I was always looking at the bottom of the pool. This makes it easier. However, with backstroke, it can sometimes be difficult,” Apple explains. “A lot of times they put ropes over the pool so they can know where they are.”

Apple becomes wistful when asked if he would ever want to continue competing. “I don’t usually miss it too much, the daily grind. But, as you know, all the hype begins to build around such events…

Apple is such an accomplished swimmer that when asked about it, he humbly admits that he has lost count of his achievements.

“I don’t know how many world championships and stuff I have. But two Olympic gold medals. One from the 400m freestyle relay and one from the 400m medley relay, during which we broke the world record in Tokyo.

Now retired, Apple is leveraging its success in the pool into a partnership with one of the sport’s iconic brands, Speedo. He says the company approached him while researching the current generation of high-tech suits.

“When I was an athlete, I had to help fix these suits,” he recalled. “They gave us samples and we gave them feedback on what was good, what was bad, where and how they could move the panels of the suit.”

On Saturday, Apple will occupy an unknown location, far from the starting blocks.

I’ll be sitting in the stands for most of the game, just watching and cheering. It’s actually a little more hectic now because I can’t control anything that’s happening. I just sit in the stands and watch, but it’s great fun.

Swimming trials at the U.S. Olympic Games will last until Sunday, June 23.