Klete Keller

Klete Keller is an American former competitive swimmer, born in Las Vegas on 21 March 1982. A freestyler who trained at the University of Southern California and later at Club Wolverine in Ann Arbor under Jon Urbanchek, he won five Olympic medals, two of them gold, at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics. He took bronze in the 400 metre freestyle at Sydney, and at Athens in 2004 he anchored the United States 4x200 metre freestyle relay to gold by holding off Ian Thorpe by 0.13 seconds, a race Swimming World later ranked among the great Olympic relays. He won a second relay gold at Beijing in 2008 and retired from swimming that year. His later life was difficult, and in 2021 he took part in the attack on the United States Capitol, for which he pleaded guilty to a single felony and was sentenced in December 2023 to probation and home detention, before receiving a presidential pardon in January 2025.