Ryan Held will appear at the Paris Olympics for the preliminary rounds of the men’s relay swimming events

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Springfield native Ryan Held failed to strike gold twice.

But that ultimately didn’t stop the U.S. swimming team from winning the gold medal in the 4×100-meter relay on Saturday night on the first day of swimming at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

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Held, a 2014 Sacred Heart-Griffin High School graduate, swam the first leg of the 4×100-meter relay in the early session prelims. Held, Matt King, Hunter Armstrong and anchor Caeleb Dressel joined the relay in second place in 3 minutes, 12.61 seconds to set the stage for the night session. U.S. rival Australia had the best time in the prelims in 3:12.25.

Held closed the preliminary rounds with a split time of 48.5, followed by King (48.4), Armstrong (47.3) and Dressel (47.1). Held and King were replaced by Jack Alexy and Chris Guiliano, making it the four US players to reach the final.

Alexy and Guiliano swam the first two legs respectively, with Armstrong and Dressel bringing home the win for the U.S. — the country’s first gold medal of the Games. Armstrong swam a blistering split of 46.7 on the third leg as the relay rolled to a final time of 3:09. 28. Australia took silver and Italy bronze.

Held was part of his second career Olympic team after winning gold in the 4×100-meter relay with Dressel, Nathan Adrian and legend Michael Phelps at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. He did not make it to the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan due to roster limitations, but did qualify for those Games with a fifth-place finish in the 100-meter freestyle at the Olympic Swimming Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in June.

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Held, now 29 and an alumnus of NC State University, still holds the Illinois High School Association state record in the 50-yard freestyle at 19.76 seconds. He is a two-time state winner in the 100 freestyle.

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