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Nick Symmonds
Nicholas Boone Symmonds (born December 30, 1983) is an American YouTube personality and retired middle-distance runner from Boise, Idaho, who specialized in the 800 meters and 1500 meters.[6] At Willamette University, he won seven NCAA Division III titles outdoors. Symmonds is a 6-time US national 800 meters champion. He has competed in the 800m at two Olympic Games, reaching the semi-finals in Beijing 2008,[7] 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. The following year, he won a silver medal in the 800 meters at the 2013 World Championships, having previously finished sixth in the 2009 final and fifth in the 2011 final. Symmonds signed with Brooks Running in January 2014 after a 7-year sponsorship with Nike.[8] In October 2014, Symmonds and his coach Sam Lapray co-founded Run Gum, a supplement company which makes functional chewing gum. Following his retirement, Symmonds gained more popularity in 2020 through his YouTube channel which primarily focuses on running, powerlifting, and fitness. He is also pursuing the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each continent. Early life and educationSymmonds was born on December 30, 1983, in Blytheville, Arkansas.[9] His family moved to Boise, Idaho when he was three-years old. His father Jeffrey Symmonds is a surgeon, and his mother Andrea is a teacher.[10] Raised in Boise, Symmonds is a 2002 graduate of Bishop Kelly High School.[10] An avid outdoorsman, Symmonds earned his Eagle Scout award in high school.[11] In high school, he won state championships in the 800 meters, 1600 meters, 3200 meters, and the 4 × 400 m relay. His high school personal bests were 1:53 in the 800 meters, 4:20 in the 1600 meters, and 9:47 in the 3200 meters.[10][12] He chose Willamette University in Salem, Oregon over other schools that could offer athletic scholarships. At Willamette, an NCAA Division III school, Symmonds earned a degree in biochemistry in 2006 and is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.[10] Running careerCollegiateWhile at Willamette, he won the 800 m NCAA championship race all four years and 1500 m NCAA championship race as a freshman,[13] junior, and senior.[14] Symmonds' collegiate best in the 800m of 1:45.83 currently ranks No. 1 in NCAA Division III history.[15] His 1500m collegiate best of 3:40.91 ranks No. 3 all-time in NCAA Division III.[15] Though Symmonds is widely regarded as Willamette's most decorated athlete, his poor relationship with Head Coach Matt McGuirk has prevented wide celebration of his athletic achievements at his alma mater.[16]
Post-collegiate After college, Symmonds joined the Oregon Track Club Elite.[10] A seven-time outdoor track champion at the NCAA III level, he was runner-up at the AT&T USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2006 in the 800m race.[6] In 2007, he won the 800m race at the Prefontaine Classic meet in Eugene, Oregon, with a then personal best time of 1:44.54, upsetting the current Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy by beating him with his own come-from-behind strategy.[18] In 2008, Symmonds won the United States Olympic Trials 800m final held in Eugene, Oregon with a personal best time of 1:44.10.[19] He 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. This qualified all three men for the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, for the 800 m race.[9] At the Beijing Olympics, 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. 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. As part of his preparation for the championships, Symmonds ran a personal best of 1:43.83 on July 29, 2009, in Monaco.[10] A few weeks later, Symmonds became the first American to qualify for the final of the men's 800m since 1997. He finished sixth in 1:45.71.[6] In 2010, he lowered his personal best again, to 1:43.76, while finishing third behind David Rudisha's 1:41.01 world record at the IAAF World Challenge track and field meet in Rieti, Italy.[20] On June 25, 2012, Symmonds returned to the 2012 United States Olympic Trials again on his home track in Eugene, Oregon. The race went out fast, with Charles Jock leading Duane Solomon through a sub-50 second first lap. Atypically, Symmonds was not far off that pace. As Jock faded, Solomon charged off to a big lead through the final turn. Symmonds ran around the field and sprinted past Solomon on the homestretch to make his second Olympic team. At the London Olympics, Symmonds was one of the two time qualifiers for the final of the 800m. He 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. In 2013, 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. At the time, this was the highest an American had ever finished in the men's 800 meters at the World Championships. Symmonds was removed from the U.S. team at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics due to a sponsorship rights conflict between personal sponsor Brooks and U.S. sponsor Nike.[21] Symmonds had to forego racing the 2016 Olympic Trials due to an injured ankle.[22] He retired after being eliminated in the heats of the 2017 US Championships. Run GumIn 2014, Symmonds and his former coach, Sam Lapray, founded Run Gum, which markets a caffeinated chewing gum to athletes.[23][24] In January 2016 Run Gum filed an antitrust lawsuit against USA Track and Field for rules that Symmonds felt suppress competition.[25] In May, a federal judge dismissed the suit.[26] Symmonds often advertises Run Gum on his YouTube channel, through giving away Run Gum products as challenge prizes. There has also been several Run Gum social media accounts created, the most prominent of which is a TikTok account with over 750 thousand followers and 38 million likes.[27] After retirementYouTube
In 2017, Symmonds' original intention of creating his YouTube channel was to vlog the final two weeks of his pro running career.[29] His channel broke out in late 2019, and currently has over 1.7 million subscribers and 580 million views. In his YouTube videos, he often refers to himself as "The Bison". His content focuses on challenges involving fitness and running. He is good friends with fellow YouTuber A.J. Lapray. Sometime in 2020 he signed a deal with Gymshark.[citation needed] In June and July 2020, Symmonds became a topic of controversy in the running community when he organized events ignoring social distancing guidance for his videos.[30] Beginning in 2020, Symmonds started a second YouTube channel named 'Nick Symmonds Too', consisting of reaction, tutorial and challenge videos of shorter length. As of 2024, the channel has 55.8 thousand subscribers, and 6.49 million views.[31] Throughout the 2020s, Symmonds' channel grew in popularity. As his channel grew, Symmonds became known by many as "The MrBeast of Fitness",[32] with the channel motto being, "It Pays to Be Fit!".[29] As a one million subscriber special, Symmonds gathered one million pennies, and subscribers were allowed to keep as many as they could carry to a scale.[33] On November 10, 2023, Symmonds announced via a video on his channel he was taking a break from his YouTube career.[29] He returned on August 31, 2024 with a video on climbing Denali, the highest peak in North America.[34] Mile to MountainOn May 1, 2018, Symmonds announced his official retirement from track & field, along with his next major personal goal; to climb the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each continent. Symmonds refers to this goal as Mile to Mountain.[35] With an Everest expedition set for spring of 2025,[34] if he is successful, Symmonds would become the first person in history to both summit Mount Everest and run a sub four minute mile.[36] As of May 2024, Symmonds has climbed three of the Seven Summits; Kilimanjaro,[37] Puncak Jaya,[38] and Denali.[34] Alongside his Mile to Mountain goal, Symmonds worked on summiting all fifty U.S. state highpoints over a period of ten years, finishing in 2024 on Denali, the highest point in Alaska, the United States, and North America.[34] Personal lifeAt the 2013 World Championships in Athletics in Moscow, Symmonds was a vocal critic of Russia's "anti-gay" laws.[39] He dedicated his silver medal to his gay and lesbian friends.[40] Symmonds published an article in the November 2013 issue of Runner's World magazine advocating that Congress should "ban assault rifles and handguns for everyone except police and military personnel."[41] In 2017, Symmonds was hired by the newly formed Track Town Summer Series Professional Track & Field league to act as General Manager for the team representing San Francisco.[citation needed] Symmonds opposed what he considers absurdly strict rules restricting athletes' ability to market themselves. For the 2012 season, he auctioned off space on his left shoulder for a temporary tattoo to advertise a sponsor. The winning bidder was a Milwaukee advertising agency, Hanson Dodge Creative, which paid $11,000 for the space to advertise their Twitter handle. During restricted competitions such as the Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games, Symmonds was required to cover up the tattoo with white tape, which ends up drawing attention to the tattoo advertising underneath.[42] Prior to Symmonds, 2004 Olympic champion shot-putter Adam Nelson actively sold space on his shirt during the 2005 season, when he won the IAAF World Championships.[43] The practice is also common in boxing.[44] On the matter, Symmonds commented:
In 2020, Symmonds married Tiana Baur.[46] Symmonds has a pet rabbit named Mortimer, with whom he posed for a PETA ad campaign against animal testing.[47] He is also an avid fisherman and pilot.[48][49] Circuit and national competition wins
International competitions
Publications
References
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