Hunter Armstrong had no intention of getting baptized. He didn’t even know Feb. 9 was Baptism Sunday.
But something about the series at Rock City Church in Hilliard, Ohio, which focused on relationships and how to have a Christ-centered relationship, resonated with the Olympic gold-medal swimmer.
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“As I sat there, I really just felt so connected with the message and with the church that it was placed on my heart to get baptized,” Armstrong told Sports Spectrum on Wednesday.
Following the service, a pastor who has served as a major source of support for Armstrong following the 2024 Paris Olympics baptized him in a small pool outside of the church.
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God moving in his heart that day was no coincidence, Armstrong said. It was a year to the day that his life was at one of its lowest points. Halfway across the world in Doha, Qatar, competing in the 2024 World Aquatics Championships, Armstrong was reeling after a tough breakup. When he wasn’t in the pool or preparing for a race, he was holed up in his hotel room.
“I had never felt so alone,” he said.
It didn’t take long for some of his teammates to notice something was off, so they invited him to attend a Bible study with sports chaplain Ashley Null. Back home, Armstrong’s brother, Jake, completed a fast with Rock City Church and shared with Hunter how close he felt to God. That was enough to convince Hunter that he needed to pursue his relationship with Jesus more intentionally.
“You reach a point when you realize you can’t do this alone anymore,” Hunter said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast in June.
He started watching services online, participating in Bible studies virtually while training in California, and says his faith has grown immensely over the past year. Though he was baptized as an infant, Armstrong said he wanted to make his own conscious decision, now that he understands what faith in Jesus looks like.
“I look back at the man I used to be and I can hardly recognize him,” he said. “So I wanted to get baptized as the new man that God had made me to be and officially say as an adult that I dedicate my life to Christ.”
A native of Dover, Ohio, Armstrong excelled as a swimmer at Ohio State University and has emerged as one of the best young American swimmers, especially in backstroke events. He made his Olympic debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as a member of the gold medal-winning 400-meter medley relay team. Since then, he’s won 15 world championship medals (seven gold, three silver, five bronze) and set the world record in the 50m backstroke with a time of 23.71 seconds, though it has since been broken.
The 24-year-old won another gold medal last summer at the Paris Olympics as part of the 400m freestyle relay team, and a silver medal as part of the 400m medley relay team.
The first USA gold in Paris. 🇺🇸🥇
Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong and Caeleb Dressel brought home the third consecutive men's 4x100m free relay gold for the United States. #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/7vqiU4YsY2
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) September 19, 2024
Armstrong credits a lot of his newfound perspective to maturity, but he’s also quick to recognize those who have played a role in helping him get there, including Team USA teammates Michael Andrew, Carson Foster and coach David Marsh, a member of the coaching staff at the University of California-Berkeley, where Armstrong has been training for the last few years.
He also praised his church home and the pastors who have poured into him, as well as his brother who has continued to walk beside him in his relationship with Jesus.
Though he spends most of his days in water, Armstrong said there was something noticeably different about the baptism water. After he came up from under the water, his brother and sister-in-law asked him how he felt, and he couldn’t immediately find the words to describe his emotions.
“I felt lighter, I stood taller and I felt so much peace,” he said. “All of the mental health struggles I face post-Games simply became irrelevant. When I came out of the water, it felt like slow motion. I felt the water warp around my face right before it breached. And suddenly I could see this bright light through my closed eyes.
“It was a shady, cloudy and cold day that day, but it looked like a summer day for that brief moment. And when I opened my eyes, I was staring right into the sky. Truly the best words I could use to describe it are just peace and love.”
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