Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Held Gets Engaged to NC State Swim Alum Lexie Lupton

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.

 

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Ol' Longhorn
3 years ago

No tears of joy?

Anonymoose
3 years ago

How he got so nice calves? I want too

ACC fan
3 years ago

Congratulations Ryan and Lexie! Love the love happening at NC STATE among these swimmers! No one can understand a swimmer like another swimmer. 🧜‍♀️🧜‍♂️

wow
3 years ago

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)

PVSFree
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

Who’s the coach at Georgia Tech that Margalis and Fink are training with?

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  PVSFree
3 years ago

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.

coachymccoachface
Reply to  Ol' Longhorn
3 years ago

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!

Blackflag82
Reply to  coachymccoachface
3 years ago

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

coachymccoachface
Reply to  Blackflag82
3 years ago

What? I was saying GT doesn’t recruit well from it’s own pool. Not that those swimmers should swim there

Blackflag82
Reply to  coachymccoachface
3 years ago

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…

DMSWIM
Reply to  coachymccoachface
3 years ago

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.

coachymccoachface
Reply to  DMSWIM
3 years ago

Yeah, I don’t think swim teams are inhibited by difficult schools academically if you look at the best swimming schools…..

DMSWIM
Reply to  coachymccoachface
3 years ago

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by DMSWIM
Stewie
Reply to  coachymccoachface
3 years ago

Can confirm they are terrible recruiters, at least of domestic athletes.

Swimmer
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

Smoliga is also at ASU

Hswimmer
Reply to  Swimmer
3 years ago

Is this true?

katie’s gator arc
Reply to  Swimmer
3 years ago

SAY SIKE RN WHAT??

Ledecky will go under 8 minutes in the 800
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

now Texas has both leah smith and sullivan, two prominent female distance swimmers

USA

Make that 3 with Evie Pfeifer.

Corn Pop

But are they getting married?

Last edited 3 years ago by Corn Pop
wow
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

Also Kathleen Baker from TE to NC State

Breezeway
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

Her latest IG is still promoting Marsh/TE

Taa
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

i can’t keep up with this. Someone do a cheat sheet for me.

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

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.

Eric the eel > Phelps
Reply to  wow
3 years ago

speaking of coaching change, down under Mack Horton moved from Melbourne to the Gold Coast to train with Michael Bohl

Swammer
3 years ago

Is he training in Arizona?

Swimswamswum
Reply to  Swammer
3 years ago

David Marsh said he was training with Bob at ASU between Italy and Eidenhoven

About Reid Carlson

Reid Carlson

Reid Carlson originally hails from Clay Center, Kansas, where he began swimming at age six with the Clay Center Tiger Sharks, a summer league team. At age 14 he began swimming club year-round with the Manhattan Marlins (Manhattan, KS), which took some convincing from his mother as he was very …

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