Marginal Wood Fern – Dryopteris marginalis

Randall Bal (born November 14, 1980) is an American swimmer who specialized in the backstroke. He is a former world record holder in the 50-meter backstroke (long and short course).^[1]

He has won a total of thirteen medals in major international competition,^[1] five golds, six silvers, and two bronze spanning the World Championships, the Pan American Games, and the Pan Pacific Championships.^[2]

Bal was born in Fair Oaks, California in 1980, the son of Adrian and Carol Bal. His younger sister, Tamara, swam at UCLA. Bal attended Bella Vista High School where he graduated in 1999. From there, he swam for Stanford University, class of 2003, and graduated with a degree in psychology.

At the 2008 FINA Short Course World Championships in Manchester, he took the silver medal in the 100 Back, but he finished a surprising sixth (his PB would have won the event) in the 50 Back. He won another silver on the medley relay. He was the top qualifier in the 100 Back at the 2008 Olympic Trials, in both the preliminaries and semi-finals, with the then-third fastest time ever in the semis (53.09), but he faded to fourth in the finals,^[1] finishing behind Aaron Peirsol, who set a new World Record of 52.89, Matt Grevers, and Ryan Lochte.^[3] In 2008 Randall broke both the World Record (24.33 LCM & 22.87 SCM) in the 50 backstroke and missed the 100 LCM backstroke World Record by .04 of a second. He is currently training in northern California.

• List of Pan American Games records in swimming
• List of Stanford University people
• List of World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming (men)
• World record progression 50 metres backstroke

• Randall Bal at World Aquatics
• Randall Bal at USA Swimming (archived June 2, 2021)
• Randall Bal – Stanford University athlete bio at the Wayback Machine (archived August 10, 2011)