By RICHIE HALL
INDIANAPOLIS – Aaron Shackell became an Olympian last Saturday.
The Carmel graduate gave local fans a reason to cheer during the first night of the 2024 Olympic Trials – Swimming, which are taking place this week at Lucas Oil Stadium. Shackell was the first swimmer to qualify for the United States Olympic team as he won the men’s 400 freestyle race in 3 minutes, 45.46 seconds.
Shackell joins an elite but growing list of Olympic qualifiers from Carmel. Drew Kibler and Jake Mitchell both swam in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and both have chances to make the 2024 Paris team as the trials continue through Sunday.
Shackell was seeded fourth at the start of the race, but he jumped to the lead by the end of the first 50 meters and stayed there. He swam his last 50 meters in 27.96 seconds.
“To be honest, the last 50, everything in my body kind of turned off, like I couldn’t really hear anything,” said Shackell. He said he was “so in the zone, and I saw that I had the lead, and I know the training that I do, if I have the lead with 50 yards left or 50 meters left, I’m not going to lose.”
And Shackell got to turn his Olympic dream into reality in front of his Carmel friends, coaches and 20,689 fans that attended the first night of finals.
“The Carmel community is everything to me,” said Shackell. “That’s part of the reason why I swam so well. I think I thrive whenever I’m inspiring other people or when I’m around kids that are looking up to people. I think that’s what made me want to be good.
“There’s like a certain amount of like – I don’t want to say power, but it energizes you to make you want to go faster. I don’t know how to describe it, but it just fills me.”
Shackell, who has transferred to the University of Texas after spending his freshman year at the University of California, was one of three Hamilton County swimmers that advanced to the eight-man final of the 400 free. Fishers’ Luke Whitlock was the top seed in the finals with a swim of 3:46.42. He finished fifth in the finals, clocking in at 3:46.55.
“The thing we talked about before the race was, he had to swim aggressive,” said Carmel coach Chris Plumb. “You got to take it out, you got to be willing to go for it. And you can’t depend on these other guys to do that. So, you’ve got to set the pace and the tone for this race.”
Carmel grad Jake Mitchell placed eighth in 3:50.76. Mitchell, Shackell and Drew Kibler, another Carmel grad, are set to compete in the 200 freestyle prelims today, along with Aaron’s younger brother Andrew Shackell, an incoming senior at Carmel.
Another Shackell will get a chance to compete for an Olympic spot today. Alex Shackell, also a senior-to-be at Carmel (and Andrew’s twin sister), reached the finals in the women’s 100 butterfly event. Shackell qualified fourth in the prelims last Saturday morning (57.07 seconds), then placed fourth again in the evening semifinals (56.78 seconds) to advance to the final eight.
Kelly Pash, a Carmel graduate who swam for the University of Texas, joined Alex Shackell in the finals. She took fifth in the prelims (57.66) to move on to the semifinals, then earned the eighth spot in the semis (57.97) to advance to the final. (The finals took place last Sunday night, check out readthereporter.com to see results.)
Carmel’s Kayla Han swam in the women’s 400 freestyle event. She placed ninth in the prelims with a time of 4:09.96, making her the first alternate into the finals. After two swimmers scratched, Han moved up to the finals, where she placed fourth in 4:08.21. The winner of that race was the legendary Katie Ledecky, who finished the race in 3:58.35 to qualify for her fourth Olympics.
Two more Carmel swimmers competed last Saturday. Lynsey Bowen also swam in the women’s 400 free, placing 27th in 4:14.01. Gregg Enoch raced in the men’s 400 free, taking 18th in 3:51.06.
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