Cullen Jones

Cullen Jones (born 1984) is an American former competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist who specialized in freestyle sprint events. Born in the Bronx and raised in Irvington, New Jersey, he learned to swim after a near-drowning at a water park at age five, and he swam for North Carolina State University from 2003 to 2006 before turning professional. He was the first African-American to hold a world record in swimming, as part of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay. At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing he won gold in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay in a world record 3:08.24 with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London he won silver medals in the 50-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle relay and a gold medal in the 4x100-meter medley relay for swimming the freestyle leg in the preliminaries.