The United States’ top coaching brass will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to preview the pool that will be used for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
The temporary, 15,000 seat facility was opened for the first time to host Brazil’s Maria Lenk Trophy – the country’s National Championship meet – and the world is getting their first look at the facility that will host the fastest swimmers in the world in August.
So, while there’s no American swimmers in attendance, a delegation of National Team Director Frank Busch, head men’s Olympic coach Bob Bowman, head women’s Olympic coach David Marsh, and National Team Managing Director Lindsay Mintenko will travel to Rio to observe the meet.
The group will leave after the conclusion of this week’s Arena Pro Swim Series meet in Mesa, Arizona, with Bowman saying that this will be their only chance to get inside of the competition pool prior to the actual Olympics.
The 2016 Maria Lenk Trophy also serves as the official Rio Olympic test event, and is open to swimmers of all nations. International swimmers are allowed to qualify for A-finals, but B-finals will remain exclusively Brazilian. The meet runs from April 15th-20th. See our full coverage of Maria Lenk here.
Thank you Matthew – you are thinking the right way. I appreciate your list of reminders to check on. The less surprises the better. We’ll only be there 2 days so we hope to get all the info we can. Any other ideas out there? ???????? Fair enough “G3” I hate wasted $ as well.
Sounds like a vacation paid for by USA swimming. I do not understand the purpose. Need to look at the facility?
Frank-“Looks like a nice pool”
Bob-“Yep. It has water and everything.”