Olympic Swimmer from Springfield: Ryan Held
Ryan Held is the Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer who has been ranked third in the world in 2019-following behind American Caeleb Dressel and Australian Kyle Chalmers-after winning the 100m free at the U.S. Championships in Palo Alto, California, in just 47.39 seconds. Held specializes in sprint events as an American freestyle swimmer and is currently sponsored by Arena.
Born in 1995, Held is originally from Springfield, IL, where he attended Sacred Heart-Griffin High School and was a multiple-time state champion and record breaker. During his senior year in high school in 2014, Held was named Illinois State Swimmer of the year.
Held continued to swim and compete throughout his college career up until 2016 when he earned his first international call up to the 2016 Olympic Games in the 400-meter freestyle relay. He missed out on the individual spot, but finished three one-hundredths of a second behind second place for the Trials, placing right behind Florida's Caleb Dressel. This third-place finish ended up earning him a spot in Rio.
2016 Rio Olympics
At the 2016 U.S. trials, Held qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics as a member of the 4x100 meter freestyle relay team. Held swam a split time of 47.79 on the second leg of the Olympic heats. This earned him a spot in the final, and though his time wasn't quite as fast as Anthony Ervin's, the head coach Bob Bowman make the decision to send Held based on how young he was.
When time came for the final, Held split 47.73 on the third leg, preserving Team USA's lead and allowing Nathan Adrian to seal the win in the end, and Team USA-consisting of Caeleb Dressel, Michael Phelps, Adrian and Held-took home the gold medal together.
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