2016 Olympic gold medalist and U.S. National Champion Ryan Held announced his engagement to Lexie Lupton, a fellow NC State swimming alumnus, on Sunday via Instagram.
Held and Lupton swam together on NC State’s varsity swim team during the 2017-2018 season after Lupton transferred to NC State from Texas A&M. Lupton became a two-time All-American at NC State as a member of the 200 and 400 freestyle relays in 2018. Lupton’s NCAA career came to an end in 2019. Currently, Lupton works for the Arizona Diamondbacks MLB team, per her LinkedIn profile.
Held is a 2016 Olympic gold medalist from the 4 x 100 freestyle relay which he swam on with Caeleb Dressel, Michael Phelps, and Nathan Adrian. Held placed 3rd at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 100 freestyle, just getting out-touched by Dressel to become the second individual performer in the men’s 100 freestyle in Rio. Held placed 6th in the 100 free at U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 and just missed making the U.S. Olympic team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Held remains one of NC State’s greatest swimmers having earned a total of 25 All-American honors and won 4 NCAA championships on relays during his time at NC State. Held is also a 23-time ACC Champion in both relay and individual events. Held was named the ACC Most Valuable Swimmer for men in both 2017 and 2018.
Held is the 5th-fastest performer all-time in the 50 yard freestyle (18.56), the 8th-fastest all-time in the 100-yard freestyle (41.05), the 14th-fastest all-time in the 200 yard freestyle (1:31.37), and the 21st-fastest all-time in the 100 yard butterfly (44.79). Held was also the 2019 US National Champion in the 100 LCM freestyle with a 47.39, formerly the U.S. Open Record until the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha.
Held currently competes for the LA Current in the International Swimming League and will return to Eindhoven in November for the semifinals of the ISL’s third season.
No tears of joy?
How he got so nice calves? I want too
Congratulations Ryan and Lexie! Love the love happening at NC STATE among these swimmers! No one can understand a swimmer like another swimmer. 🧜♀️🧜♂️
When is SwimSwam going to report on all the major coaching changes?
Held (Coley –> Bowman)
Leah Smith (Arizona –> Texas/Capatani)
Margalis/Fink (Georgia –> Georgia Tech)
Who’s the coach at Georgia Tech that Margalis and Fink are training with?
I mean it’s not like the head coach is some slouch. Sure someone on her staff might directly work more with IM/breast, but Courtney Shealy Hart is a studdette. She’a a relay Olympic gold medalist with 13 years of success and an endowed coaching position. People should probably know her name. The Pumputis of Love did well there, and he’s a breast/IMer.
I mean it’s still an odd choice. Georgia Tech has a pool used for the Olympics, two (maybe even 3?) gold medal clubs within 30 minutes (one that trains in their pool and doesn’t even try to recruit their top kids) and gets beat by teams with much less resources. Maybe she is just bad at recruiting which wouldn’t matter to these guys but to question the move is more than warranted. If I’m wrong about any of that I would love to know why!
I mean, the most obvious reason I can think of to go to a qualified coach on a less competitive team is to actually benefit from the coaching…If you’re making plans to move on with your life and were a student at UGA, but still want to swim, getting to Atlanta is a good step (this coming from an approaching middle-ager living in Athens). Swimming in a crowded Swim Atlanta or Dynamo pool might not get you the coaching you want right now regardless to the resume of the staff
What? I was saying GT doesn’t recruit well from it’s own pool. Not that those swimmers should swim there
Sorry if I misunderstood your point. “it’s still an odd choice” & “but to question the move is more than warranted” by my reading implies more than just a statement of GT not recruiting well…
Georgia Tech is limited in the majors they offer which may be why they don’t get as good of recruits. In addition to being a difficult school academically, they offer limited majors outside of the STEM field. When I was looking at schools many eons ago, I ruled out Georgia Tech because I wanted to do a poli sci/pre-law track and they didn’t offer that.
Yeah, I don’t think swim teams are inhibited by difficult schools academically if you look at the best swimming schools…..
You completely missed my point. It’s not the academic difficulty of the school–it’s the specificity of the majors. Cal, Stanford, UVA, and Michigan all have a broad range of majors offered.
Can confirm they are terrible recruiters, at least of domestic athletes.
Smoliga is also at ASU
Is this true?
SAY SIKE RN WHAT??
now Texas has both leah smith and sullivan, two prominent female distance swimmers
Make that 3 with Evie Pfeifer.
But are they getting married?
Also Kathleen Baker from TE to NC State
Her latest IG is still promoting Marsh/TE
i can’t keep up with this. Someone do a cheat sheet for me.
Bowman has been a post-Olympic final resting spot for a lot of Olympians, American and foreign. Remember the Agnel-era training group? I’m sure they look at him for how he managed the longevity of Phelps and Schmitty.
speaking of coaching change, down under Mack Horton moved from Melbourne to the Gold Coast to train with Michael Bohl
Is he training in Arizona?
David Marsh said he was training with Bob at ASU between Italy and Eidenhoven