At the 2024 swimming and diving ACC Championships, NC State’s graduate Owen Lloyd became one of the biggest names in collegiate swimming — mostly from outrage.
Lloyd was the first to touch the wall in the 1650m championship heat event, claiming his first ACC gold medal. In celebration, he hoisted himself onto the lane line and pumped his fists.
But then he lost his balance, falling into the neighboring lane of the second place finisher, teammate then-fifth-year Ross Dant. Lloyd was disqualified for interfering with another swimmer during the race and as a result lost his gold medal. Although Dant had already finished, and Lloyd was not interfering with any of the other swimmers, Lloyd was still disqualified according to the rulebook and Dant was ruled the winner.
When news broke of the disqualification, the arena filled with boo’s. Dant stood on a diving block, giving a thumbs down to the officials as Lloyd held his head in his hands, letting all of his emotions out from the shock of his disqualification.
The swimming world was outraged — members of the community found examples of times this rule had not been enforced and shared them on the internet. Dant, sticking up for his teammate and friend, called it the “dumbest rule in swimming.” He gave his gold medal to Lloyd, saying that Lloyd won it fair and square.
“He’s a great teammate, and what he did last year was awesome,” Lloyd said. “And it was a big part of the reason why it went so viral — him protesting during his interview. He handled that so well.”
Dant said his actions that day were simply a reflection of NC State’s swimming culture.
“I would hope that everyone that found themselves in the situation I was in would do something similar,” Dant said. “I would say that anyone on the team would do exactly that.”
In the coming year after losing his gold medal, Lloyd channelled his frustration with the disqualification into successful training habits. Instead of letting the disqualification get to him, Lloyd used it as motivation for a redemption arc.
Halfway through this season, Lloyd was one of the favorites in the 1650m, but that all changed when Cal’s Lucas Henveaux joined the field in January.
“The Belgian Olympian Lucas Henveaux was added to Cal’s roster, kind of this last minute thing with some fuzzy eligibility stuff,” Lloyd said. “I won’t get into that, but I was really upset about that. And then he popped a 14:29, which actually would have beaten me at ACCs, at one of their meets.”
Lloyd didn’t let Henveaux get in his head either. Instead, he got his revenge by winning the same event he was disqualified in to secure 2025 gold with a time of 14:31.64, adding a second gold medal to his collection with his name officially in the record books.
This time he celebrated the gold medal performance in his lane. Lloyd finished five seconds ahead of second place, finding redemption in his final ACC Championships.
“I never thought that I would have millions of people see me crying on the internet,” Lloyd said. “I definitely still have some negative emotions with it, but yeah, I don’t know where I’d be or what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten DQ’d.”
After everything that happened at the Greensboro Aquatic Center that day in 2024, Lloyd felt a lot of pressure a month later in the NCAAs. The swimmer finished the NCAA 1650m in 14:39.18, two seconds slower than his 14:37.04 at the 2024 ACC Championships.
“I definitely had a lot of nerves going into that meet that kind of held me back,” Lloyd said. “But being able to deal with that at that meet, I think, helped me a lot for this past weekend.”
After giving up his medal in 2024, Dant does not have anything to commemorate the event, except for the memories and maybe the mark he left on the swimming community for standing up for Lloyd.
“I was at Chipotle, a little bit after it happened, maybe a month or two,” Dant said. “And the server recognized me, loaded up my bowl with double rice, double chicken and everything, and didn’t charge me for it.”
The only physical display celebrating Dant’s accomplishment is the banner hung in Casey Aquatic Center listing his name, event and year. Now, as their collegiate stories come to a close, Dant’s and Lloyd’s names will hang in the rafters together as ACC champions.
Lloyd’s story isn’t over yet. He will compete as one of the favorites at the NCAA championships March 26-29 in Federal Way, Washington. After graduation, Lloyd plans to become a swim coach and help young swimmers reach their full potential, just as his team did when he was a walk-on four years ago.
