Two Seymour high school swimmers will get to be a part of the United States Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis today.

Seymour’s Colin Hartung and Lane Mellencamp will be basket carriers during the meet. Hartung will be a sophomore this upcoming season, while Mellencamp will be a junior.

Hartung and Mellencamp will be assigned to swimmers and will take care of their gear such as their goggles, towels and anything else they might need.

Both athletes spoke about the opportunity to go to Lucas Oil Stadium and be a part of these Olympic Trials.

“This is an incredible opportunity for Lane and me, this is a once in a lifetime experience,” Hartung said. “You had to be ages 13 to 18 to be a basket carrier and the trials are every four years. So, in four years, I will be 19 and four years ago, I would have been 11. And it also just so happened that this year is in Indianapolis. I am so very thankful to have this opportunity.

“Being a basket carrier at the U.S. Olympic Trials is such a cool experience,” Mellencamp said. “I get to be right there in the action, supporting the athletes and being part of something truly special. Plus, I’ll probably have some great stories to share afterward.”

Hartung has had an exciting year with professional swimming, attending the Phillips 66 National Swimming Championships and the NCAA National Swimming Championships, which were both in Indy.

“It’s all happened in the past year,” Hartung said. “I went to watch both with my mom so to be actually volunteering at the Olympic trials is such a crazy and cool experience for me.

All carriers had to practice, learning what they must do during the trials. Practices have been taking place for a couple of months leading up to today.

“We practiced being professional and appropriate ways to conduct ourselves and the responsibilities of a basket carrier,” Mellencamp said.

“We first had practice sometime in April and learned the way you should do everything. There were about 60 kids doing it and we were separated into three teams,” Hartung said. “I was one of nine kids selected to be a leader. We had a few more practices in early June. Then for a real time practice, we were basket carriers for the stadium splash, which was a last chance swim meet right before the trials.”

This is the first time the event will take place on a football field. It is so big; people have said you cannot even smell the chlorine. It has the sights of producing the largest crowd for a U.S. Olympic Trial and that is their goal.

Mellencamp and Hartung both spoke about their first impressions of the gigantic pool set up in Lucas Oil Stadium.

“Unbelievable, that is my goal, to be in the trials,” Mellencamp said.

“When I first saw the pool at Lucas Oil, I was amazed,” Hartung said. “I wasn’t sure how they were going to put an Olympic-sized pool into a football stadium, but the way they did it, they did it right.”

The atmosphere is one thing both athletes are looking forward to this weekend.

“I turned toward Lane at that first time seeing it and said, “I think I would get a personal record if I swam in that pool right now,” Hartung said. “The atmosphere would give a swimmer so much energy and pump them up so much. That’s how cool it is.”

But Mellencamp and Hartung are most excited about seeing the trials unfold on Saturday.

“I’m really excited to see all the talented athletes competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials this weekend,” Mellencamp said. “It’s always inspiring to watch them give their all and see who will qualify for the Olympics. The energy and passion at events like these are just incredible. I cannot wait to see the performances and cheer on the athletes.

“I’m looking forward to being able to see all the fastest times and some of the fastest swimmers in the world,” Hartung said. “One of my big goals is to swim in college and a lot of the swimmers at the trials are college students. This is an incredible opportunity to see and possibly meet them.”

The opening night attendance record was around 16,000 at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics. Lucas Oil is expected to have around 30,000 seats for the event.

It also will allow for more space for swimmers, basket carriers, coaches and anyone who needs to be around the pool. If the event is a hit, it will be hard for the trials to go anywhere other than a football stadium.