One Year After Heartbreaking DQ, Breaking Down the Redemption of Owen Lloyd
At last year’s ACC Championships, North Carolina State standout Owen Lloyd was disqualified in the 1650 freestyle after initially appearing to pick up his first individual conference title. Minutes after finishing his race, Lloyd was shocked to hear the announcer call that he’d been DQed for crossing over into another swimmer’s lane.
Lloyd had, in celebration, moved into his teammate Ross Dant’s lane to celebrate with him after the Wolfpack distance stars had finished 1-2. Athletes in other lanes were still swimming, but the footage is clear in showing that Lloyd and Dant had not interfered with anyone still finishing their race.
Dant, to his credit, was reluctant in being given the title, saying: “I think that’s the dumbest rule in swimming. Owen beat me fair and square. He should be on the podium. He was excited. That’s a huge swim for him. He earned that, and that’s his emotion.” Dant then went on to give Lloyd the award. When the N.C. State Instagram account posted about the race, it used a picture of both Lloyd and Dant, calling them co-champions.
The official who disqualified Lloyd was, at least on paper, correct in disqualifying him. “A swimmer who changes lanes during a heat shall be disqualified.” The guideline is known as Rule 2.5.b.
A Moment of Virality
The story reached outside of the standard swimming news outlets. It reached national levels and entered conversations that had never previously included swimming.
Olympic champion Amy Van Dyken, who provided commentary for the meet, went so far as to point out similar situations in other races: “So if you called out Owen Lloyd for celebrating and ‘interfering’ – which he did not – you gotta call the backstrokers for diving in, which you did not. So if you’re going to call one, you call them all. That has been my problem with this whole thing.”
Lloyd’s newfound viral support brought him all the way to the NCAA Championships, where he landed himself a fifth-place finish, a moment of redemption after a difficult ACCs.
2025 ACCs
The 2025 ACC Championships brought all eyes to conference realignment. Meanwhile, Owen Lloyd waited four long days to reclaim the title he had briefly held in 2024. After swimming a 14:37.04 in 2024, Lloyd crushed a time six seconds faster at last month’s ACC Champs. His 14:31.64 left him five seconds ahead of second place, and earned him a conference title that stuck this time.
Lloyd led a 1-4-6 finish for the Wolfpack, highlighting a strong distant contingent. The crowd erupted for Lloyd during the race, supporting his chase for the title. After he claimed gold, the fans were even louder.
“That race last year did a lot of things for me,” Lloyd said. “It was emotionally hard and I was very proud of it, and it was taken away from me. But I’m so glad it happened. All part of the plan. Put a chip on my shouldder and I came back even stronger.”
Owen Lloyd’s 2024 ACC disqualification highlights many of the ways both casual and hardcore swim fans feel the sport needs to evolve. In order to bring the sport to a more public zeitgeist, allowing for these moments of heart and emotion to break through (in the right way) is crucial.
A moment of redemption to celebrate.