Monday, April 18, 2022
Building Champions: Ryan Held
2016 Olympic gold medalist Ryan Held shined in December’s FINA World Championships (25m) in Abu Dhabi, adding six medals to his short course world championships medal haul. Fueled by motivation after his U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Swimming performance last summer, Held channeled the nerves of racing on the international stage under a new coach and with his new training group at ASU into his medal-winning performances.
“I know I swim my best when I am untethered by emotion so once the meet started, it was full business mode,” Held said.
And Held is back to business as his training is focused on the Phillips 66 International Team Trials later in April with a goal of qualifying for the team in the 50-meter backstroke and butterfly, as well as the 50m and 100m freestyle.
In this installment of Building Champions, Ryan talks about what this sport means to him and what he hopes to do when one day leaves the pool deck.
Swimmers… Take your mark…..BEEP! An uproar rises from the crowd as the swimmers dive into the pool — each willing to give it their all in the pool and decide a champion.
That feeling alone of diving into a race is worth the 5 a.m. alarms, 60km work weeks, and the last rep to failure in the weight room. Racing is the heart and soul of competitive swimming. It’s a true display of who wants it more and who is willing to endure temporary pain for long-lasting glory. Given that racing is only a fraction of time in the overall period of a swimmer’s life, the majority of a swimmer’s career is training. There is no greater privilege than training with those who are up with you at 5 a.m., grinding out practices with you, and encouraging you to do one more rep when all you want to do is rest. These people start off as teammates but quickly transform into friends and eventually family. Most are not as fortunate to have the opportunity to be surrounded by such resilient, like-minded individuals who are there to push themselves to the limit every day just for the chance of becoming 1% better. This creates an incredibly unique bond between training partners, so much so, my top races to relive are not my own.
My college team swam in a small, long course meters meet in Goldsboro, North Carolina. After the quick preliminary session, a couple of us rewarded ourselves with IHOP. While we were sitting in a sleepy IHOP in rural North Carolina, our teammate Soren Dahl was about to take the blocks for his country’s Olympic Trials in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Six of us were huddled around a small iPhone, streaming the race live from a European website in a language none of us understood. From our small IHOP booth, we witnessed our friend and teammate execute the perfect race and qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games for Team Denmark. This cherished memory perfectly encapsulates what swimming means to me and why it’s so important to me. While my own experience at the Games was incredible, it was so much more satisfying to see my friends accomplish their goals, knowing that I helped them as much as they helped me. Soren has since retired from competitive swimming and thus we are no longer training partners. However, it seems that whenever one steps away from the sport there is always a new, hungry swimmer trying to make a name for themselves, ready to take their place. This keeps practice lively and competitive.
Swimming has been, and always will be, a huge part of my life. What I am focused on now is trying to give back to the younger swimmers. Pass along any knowledge in and out of the pool. Additionally, I am trying to just smile more on deck - a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. I am doing this because as the seasons go on, I know I am getting closer to the day where I hang up the cap and goggles. I know I am going to miss all the current struggles of swimming once I am done, so I am trying to just cherish all the moments both the hard ones and the fun ones.
I feel extremely blessed that swimming has connected me to many influential figures in my life, including my college coach, Bobby Guntoro. He preached the valuable lesson of compartmentalization, meaning once you are off the pool deck you are no longer a swimmer, you are a person with interests and hobbies. One of these hobbies, which developed during my journey from Boy Scout to Eagle Scout, is my appreciation for nature. Whether it is hiking, camping or a simple picnic in a garden, I have always had a deep profound love and respect for nature. Throughout my life I have had the opportunity to see the Grand Canyon, the Smokies, the Rockies, Niagara Falls and even the beauty of Alaska. This passion of mine also fueled my academic studies. I graduated from North Carolina State University with a Bachelor of Science in Conservation Biology with a minor in Environmental Sciences. This was an extremely rewarding field because it never felt like work, more so continuing to learn about a passion of mine. This joy is what led me to pursue a master’s degree in Geospatial Sciences from North Carolina State. This career is vital in conservation due to its ability to predict, analyze and display information. I plan to apply these degrees in my future career, ideally in renewable energies or smart city development: two rising industries that could preserve and restore our planet’s beauty. I deeply care about the future of our planet, not only for my sake but for generations to come. My hope is that my work will contribute to their ability to experience nature and develop the same love for our beautiful planet.
To learn how the USA Swimming Foundation is helping build champions like Ryan, please visit www.usaswimming.org/foundation.
“I know I swim my best when I am untethered by emotion so once the meet started, it was full business mode,” Held said.
And Held is back to business as his training is focused on the Phillips 66 International Team Trials later in April with a goal of qualifying for the team in the 50-meter backstroke and butterfly, as well as the 50m and 100m freestyle.
In this installment of Building Champions, Ryan talks about what this sport means to him and what he hopes to do when one day leaves the pool deck.
Swimmers… Take your mark…..BEEP! An uproar rises from the crowd as the swimmers dive into the pool — each willing to give it their all in the pool and decide a champion.
That feeling alone of diving into a race is worth the 5 a.m. alarms, 60km work weeks, and the last rep to failure in the weight room. Racing is the heart and soul of competitive swimming. It’s a true display of who wants it more and who is willing to endure temporary pain for long-lasting glory. Given that racing is only a fraction of time in the overall period of a swimmer’s life, the majority of a swimmer’s career is training. There is no greater privilege than training with those who are up with you at 5 a.m., grinding out practices with you, and encouraging you to do one more rep when all you want to do is rest. These people start off as teammates but quickly transform into friends and eventually family. Most are not as fortunate to have the opportunity to be surrounded by such resilient, like-minded individuals who are there to push themselves to the limit every day just for the chance of becoming 1% better. This creates an incredibly unique bond between training partners, so much so, my top races to relive are not my own.
My college team swam in a small, long course meters meet in Goldsboro, North Carolina. After the quick preliminary session, a couple of us rewarded ourselves with IHOP. While we were sitting in a sleepy IHOP in rural North Carolina, our teammate Soren Dahl was about to take the blocks for his country’s Olympic Trials in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Six of us were huddled around a small iPhone, streaming the race live from a European website in a language none of us understood. From our small IHOP booth, we witnessed our friend and teammate execute the perfect race and qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games for Team Denmark. This cherished memory perfectly encapsulates what swimming means to me and why it’s so important to me. While my own experience at the Games was incredible, it was so much more satisfying to see my friends accomplish their goals, knowing that I helped them as much as they helped me. Soren has since retired from competitive swimming and thus we are no longer training partners. However, it seems that whenever one steps away from the sport there is always a new, hungry swimmer trying to make a name for themselves, ready to take their place. This keeps practice lively and competitive.
Swimming has been, and always will be, a huge part of my life. What I am focused on now is trying to give back to the younger swimmers. Pass along any knowledge in and out of the pool. Additionally, I am trying to just smile more on deck - a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. I am doing this because as the seasons go on, I know I am getting closer to the day where I hang up the cap and goggles. I know I am going to miss all the current struggles of swimming once I am done, so I am trying to just cherish all the moments both the hard ones and the fun ones.
I feel extremely blessed that swimming has connected me to many influential figures in my life, including my college coach, Bobby Guntoro. He preached the valuable lesson of compartmentalization, meaning once you are off the pool deck you are no longer a swimmer, you are a person with interests and hobbies. One of these hobbies, which developed during my journey from Boy Scout to Eagle Scout, is my appreciation for nature. Whether it is hiking, camping or a simple picnic in a garden, I have always had a deep profound love and respect for nature. Throughout my life I have had the opportunity to see the Grand Canyon, the Smokies, the Rockies, Niagara Falls and even the beauty of Alaska. This passion of mine also fueled my academic studies. I graduated from North Carolina State University with a Bachelor of Science in Conservation Biology with a minor in Environmental Sciences. This was an extremely rewarding field because it never felt like work, more so continuing to learn about a passion of mine. This joy is what led me to pursue a master’s degree in Geospatial Sciences from North Carolina State. This career is vital in conservation due to its ability to predict, analyze and display information. I plan to apply these degrees in my future career, ideally in renewable energies or smart city development: two rising industries that could preserve and restore our planet’s beauty. I deeply care about the future of our planet, not only for my sake but for generations to come. My hope is that my work will contribute to their ability to experience nature and develop the same love for our beautiful planet.
To learn how the USA Swimming Foundation is helping build champions like Ryan, please visit www.usaswimming.org/foundation.