Junior Ryan Held started off as just any other kid with a dream from Illinois. Now, after years of relentless training, hard work and dedication, he has earned one of the greatest achievements an athlete can attain: an Olympic gold medal.
Held was part of the 4×100-meter freestyle relay team that featured Caeleb Dressel, Nathan Adrian and the most decorated Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps. After performing well and helping his team earn the gold, he became even more famous after bursting into tears while the National Anthem played during medal ceremony.
“I was pretty surprised at how many people caught the tears,” Held said in a news conference Sept. 9. “I knew, obviously I was on the podium and there was probably going to be a live stream, but I wasn’t expecting major news outlets like Yahoo! and People Magazine. That was true, genuine emotion. As soon as we got off the podium, Caeleb Dressel started breaking down too, because it was so new and so real for us two because we were the rookies that it was true tears of joy, pride and just realizing you did it; this is a gold medal.”
Held’s pride for his country showed in his post-race reaction, performance and effort during the race.
“I was so tired, I swam myself to complete exhaustion,” Held said. “I had hands on my knees, bent over just gasping for air on the deck. Then I looked up with about 15 meters to go for [Adrian’s] swim and saw that he had a half a body length lead and I was like, ‘You know what? We’re going to win it. We’re going to win the gold medal.’”
Held now has a key to the city of his hometown of Springfield, Illinois and has three days out of the year named after him in his hometown, one of which had been previously named after him for his high school achievements. While he was a good swimmer in high school, he credits his NC State coaches for helping elevate him to the highest level that he is at today.
“I was good for a central Illinois community, but if you put me outside against the Chicago kids, I would get lapped,” Held said. “So I was never truly good until I came here and got developed. The coaches molded me into the elite sprinter I am today.”
Held adds his Olympic achievements to a long list of accolades that he acquired in his college career, most notably being part of the 400 relay team that won the 2016 NCAA Championship, NC State’s first NCAA title. Being part of a winning program was one of the biggest reasons Held decided to come to NC State, and he has truly made his mark on the program.
“I wanted to be a part of a winning team because my high school team didn’t win anything,” Held said. “Me and two other kids held the team while everyone else just did it for fun. I was so tired of losing; it was annoying to swim in relays because we’d be so far behind by the time I jumped in. I wanted to be a part of a winning team, and NC State was probably the winningest team I was looking at.”
As an Olympic athlete, Held got to be acquainted with a lot of the other athletes that we all watched on TV. He had dinner with golfers Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson, while he bumped into other athletes on the elevator, including Simone Biles. He even got to meet NBA superstars from the USA Olympic basketball team.
“One night, I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with DeAndre Jordan, on the other side of him was Kevin Durant,” Held said. “It was so cool because we treated each other like athletes; we treated each other as equals … We just had a casual conversation about swimming, basketball, the Olympic life.”
However, while his Olympic achievements were internationally recognized, he has jumped back into reality with his classes and training for the collegiate season.
“Four weeks ago I was on Copacabana Beach in Rio, taking in the sun, and two weeks ago I was on NC State’s campus in a wildlife management class taking notes,” Held said. “The transition from there to here has been really fast; they’re polar opposites.”
Being only a junior in college, Held still has a lot of his career ahead of him. He definitely plans to compete in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and if the 2024 Olympics take place in his home country, that would be an opportunity he wouldn’t pass up.
“If the Olympics gets decided to be in LA in 2024, I would love to swim there,” Held said. “Every time a Brazilian swimmer would swim in the finals, the stadium would start shaking. It got so much louder for a Brazilian swimmer than any other country. I would love that as an American swimmer in the United States.”
