{"id":447259,"date":"2020-09-22T11:11:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T18:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=447259"},"modified":"2020-09-22T16:02:40","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T23:02:40","slug":"two-time-olympian-lia-neal-signs-with-cali-condors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/two-time-olympian-lia-neal-signs-with-cali-condors\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-Time Olympian Lia Neal Signs With Cali Condors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-time Olympian\u00a0Lia Neal\u00a0<\/strong>of the United States recently signed with the Cali Condors of the International Swimming League after spending her first season with the New York Breakers. Neal joins a stacked Condors team that had perhaps the best women’s team in the league last year. Neal will provide depth to the Condors in the sprint freestyle events and relays as the 25-year-old has made two Olympic teams in the 4×100 freestyle relay for the United States.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Lia Neal was ranked 33rd in the world in short course meters in her specialty, the 100 freestyle (53.12), which would have been fifth among swimmers on the Cali Condors. Neal has been a consistent performer each of the last eight years, after she made the 2012 Olympic team<\/a> before her senior year of high school. She also is capable of swimming a fast 50 and 200 free, although she lines up perfectly in the middle in the 100, which provides her useful on a number of relays as well.<\/p>\n

She swam four years at Stanford University<\/a>, culminating in a national team title in 2017<\/a>, where she swam on nine national championship winning relays from 2014 – 2017.<\/p>\n

Lia Neal has also been very active in the fight for social justice this year, using her platform to create Swimmers For Change<\/a>. The intent was to start a conversation about the fight to end racism. Neal\u2019s motivation stemmed from helping others not feel so alone in the emotions of the last month.<\/p>\n

The series, produced by CG Sports Management, has raised $15,000 through merchandise sales and donations for various socially-conscious charities. It has also sparked new and deeper conversations between swimmers on topics in and out of the pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was really important for us to show the rest of the swimming community and the world that there are swimmers that do deeply care about this and want to give back,\u201d Lia Neal said in June. \u201cEven in swimming, a predominantly white sport, we don\u2019t stand for racism and we are here to show that we believe that Black lives matter. It\u2019s easy to stay silent and we wanted to be able to provide that platform for swimmers, for these high-level, elite athletes that people look up to and know that they do want to help and want to be a part of that change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Cali Condors (@calicondors_isl)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n