1. Nicholas Boone Symmonds was born on December 30,1983 and is an American YouTube personality and retired middle-distance runner from Boise, Idaho, who specialized in the 800 meters and 1500 meters.
33 Facts About Nick Symmonds
1. 2.
Nick Symmonds has competed in the 800m at two Olympic Games, reaching the semi-finals in Beijing 2008, and finishing fifth in the London 2012 final, running a personal best of 1:42.95 behind David Rudisha's world record of 1:40.91.
3.
Nick Symmonds signed with Brooks Running in January 2014 after a 7-year sponsorship with Nike.
4.
Nick Symmonds is pursuing the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each continent.
5.
Nick Symmonds was born on December 30,1983, in Blytheville, Arkansas.
6.
Nick Symmonds's family moved to Boise, Idaho when he was three-years old.
7.
Nick Symmonds's father Jeffrey Symmonds is a surgeon, and his mother Andrea is a teacher.
8.
An avid outdoorsman, Nick Symmonds earned his Eagle Scout award in high school.
9.
Nick Symmonds chose Willamette University in Salem, Oregon over other schools that could offer athletic scholarships.
10.
At Willamette, an NCAA Division III school, Nick Symmonds earned a degree in biochemistry in 2006 and is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
11.
In 2008, Nick Symmonds won the United States Olympic Trials 800m final held in Eugene, Oregon with a personal best time of 1:44.10.
12.
Nick Symmonds was the first of three Oregon associated athletes to finish at the top of this race before the home crowd, the other two being Andrew Wheating from the University of Oregon and Oregon Track Club training partner Christian Smith, an event referred to as the "Oregon sweep" and replayed many times in television coverage of the meet.
13.
At the Beijing Olympics, Nick Symmonds won his first-round heat, then finished a non-qualifying fifth place in his semifinal heat with a time of 1:46.96,0.73 seconds behind the winner of that heat.
14.
Nick Symmonds continued to improve in 2009, winning the USATF Championships over Khadevis Robinson, which qualified him to represent the United States at the World Championships.
15.
On June 25,2012, Nick Symmonds returned to the 2012 United States Olympic Trials again on his home track in Eugene, Oregon.
16.
Nick Symmonds ran around the field and sprinted past Solomon on the homestretch to make his second Olympic team.
17.
At the London Olympics, Nick Symmonds was one of the two time qualifiers for the final of the 800m.
18.
Nick Symmonds placed fifth in the final with a new personal best of 1:42.95; David Rudisha placed first in the world record time of 1:40.91, with Nijel Amos of Botswana second, Timothy Kitum of Kenya third, and Symmonds' teammate Duane Solomon fourth.
19.
In 2013, Nick Symmonds achieved his highest placing at an international championship, winning a silver medal at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Athletics by running a season's best of 1:43.55, second only to Ethiopia's Mohammed Aman.
20.
Nick Symmonds was removed from the US team at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics due to a sponsorship rights conflict between personal sponsor Brooks and US sponsor Nike.
21.
Nick Symmonds had to forego racing the 2016 Olympic Trials due to an injured ankle.
22.
Nick Symmonds retired after being eliminated in the heats of the 2017 US Championships.
23.
In January 2016 Run Gum filed an antitrust lawsuit against USA Track and Field for rules that Nick Symmonds felt suppress competition.
24.
Nick Symmonds's channel broke out in late 2019, and currently has over 1.7 million subscribers and 580 million views.
25.
Nick Symmonds's content focuses on challenges involving fitness and running.
26.
In June and July 2020, Nick Symmonds became a topic of controversy in the running community when he organized events ignoring social distancing guidance for his videos.
27.
On November 10,2023, Nick Symmonds announced via a video on his channel he was taking a break from his YouTube career.
28.
Nick Symmonds returned on August 31,2024 with a video on climbing Denali, the highest peak in North America.
29.
Alongside his Mile to Mountain goal, Nick Symmonds worked on summiting all fifty US state highpoints over a period of ten years, finishing in 2024 on Denali, the highest point in Alaska, the United States, and North America.
30.
At the 2013 World Championships in Athletics in Moscow, Nick Symmonds was a vocal critic of Russia's "anti-gay" laws.
31.
Nick Symmonds dedicated his silver medal to his gay and lesbian friends.
32.
Nick Symmonds opposed what he considers absurdly strict rules restricting athletes' ability to market themselves.
33.
Nick Symmonds has a pet rabbit named Mortimer, with whom he posed for a PETA ad campaign against animal testing.