COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The banner that greeted the Nation’s Capital Swim Club coach, Bruce Gemmell, at the natatorium on the University of Maryland campus gave him a start. It announced that his son, Andrew, a 2012 Olympian, and his most famous swimmer, Katie Ledecky, would be signing autographs during the age-group meet that Nation’s Capital annually hosts.
Gemmell hastily arranged to have the sign, which was from last year’s event, taken down before more people saw it “and we have a mob scene,” he said Friday, on the second day of the competition, which ran through Sunday.