Grant Shoults Announces Pending Return to Racing after Shoulder Surgery

In celebration of his birthday on Thursday, US National Teamer Grant Shoults announced that he’s almost ready to return to competition. While he didn’t announce the exact meet where he’d make his return, he did say it would be in the Mission Viejo pool, where he grew up training as a junior athlete, which likely means the Swim Meet of Champions that will be held from June 20th-23rd, 2019. That is a major meet that usually sees the presence of a few National and Junior National Team members.

Thank you for the Birthday wishes! I’m stoked to make my official return to the sport at my home pool in Mission Viejo soon!🤙🏻 #BirthdayNews https://t.co/5KN2FP81Rw

— grantshoults (@grantshoults) June 6, 2019

Shoults underwent surgery in January and missed the 2nd-half of his junior season, including the NCAA Championships. The timing came after a breakout summer where he placed 2nd in the 400 free at the US National Championships and qualified for the Pan Pacs team. In Tokyo, he finished 4th overall, and earned a spot on the U.S. team for the World Championships.

Shoults was the Pac-12 500 free champion in both of his first two seasons; he also took third in the 200 free and second in the 1650 his freshman year. He placed fourth in the 500 at both the 2017 and 2018 NCAA Championships. He swam only 1 official race in the 2018-2019 season: a 500 free at the Texas Invite in November, where he went 4:20.23 in prelims and 4:28.95 in finals.

In early May, USA Swimming put out an updated roster for the World Championships without Conor Dwyer on it, but Shoults’ name still appeared in spite having been out for the whole year to that point with an injury.