American · Rochester, USA · Born 1 July 1995American backstroke specialist who swept both individual backstroke events at the 2016 Rio Olympics and has anchored multiple world-record medley relays.
Ryan Murphy trained at Florida's Bolles School, a swimming program that's produced a disproportionate number of Olympic-level talent relative to its size, and turned backstroke into his signature event well before most swimmers his age had settled on a specialty. By his college years at Cal, he was already the swimmer other backstrokers were racing against, not just alongside. His 2016 Rio Olympics were about as complete as a backstroke campaign gets: gold in both the 100m and 200m individually, plus a world-record leg on the winning medley relay -- a sweep of every backstroke medal available to him in a single Games, which is rarer than the three-gold total alone suggests given how differently the 100m and 200m tend to reward different swimmers. Murphy backed that up with another gold on the medley relay at Tokyo 2020, extending a run of backstroke dominance that's spanned two Olympic cycles -- a level of sustained excellence in one specific stroke that's become the standard other American backstrokers are measured against.
Swept 100m/200m backstroke at Rio 2016; former 100m backstroke world record holder
How They Played
Technical backstroke specialist with exceptional underwater phase
Lasting Impact
One of the greatest backstroke swimmers in history
Career Honours
- 2016 Olympic gold, 100m & 200m backstroke, 4x100 medley relay (WR leg)
- 2020 Olympic gold, 4x100 medley relay (WR)
American Athletes