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Ragnheiður Ragnarsdóttir, also known as Ragga Ragnars (born October 24, 1984) is an Icelandic actress and former swimmer, who specialised in sprint freestyle events. She is a multiple-time Icelandic record holder in both long and short course freestyle (both 50 metres and 100 metres). After retiring from swimming, Ragnheiður studied acting and has played the role of Gunnhild on the TV series Vikings since 2018.
Career
Swimming
Ragnheiður made her Olympic debut, as Iceland's youngest swimmer (aged 19), at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She qualified for two swimming events by attaining B-standard entry times of 26.34 (50 m freestyle) and 56.74 (100 m freestyle). In the 100 m freestyle, Ragnheiður finished last in heat three and fortieth overall with a time of 58.47 seconds. In the 50 m freestyle, Ragnheiður almost snared out of triumph in heat five by a hundredth of a second (0.01) behind Luxembourg's Lara Heinz, finishing second and thirty-first overall in 26.36 seconds.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Ragnheiður qualified for the second time in the same swimming program as the previous Games. She cleared FINA B-cuts of 25.95 (50 m freestyle) from the Dutch Open Swim Cup in Eindhoven and 56.06 (100 m freestyle) from FINA World Championships in Melbourne. In the 100 m freestyle, she was reassigned in heat three against seven other swimmers, including Hong Kong's Hannah Wilson and Bahamas' Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace. She touched out Cyprus' Anna Stylianou to take the fifth spot and thirty-fifth overall by three hundredths of a second (0.03), in a time of 56.35 seconds. In the 50 m freestyle, Ragnheiður finished fourth in heat eight by 0.13 of a second behind Jamaica's Natasha Moodie, clocking at 25.82. Ragnheiður failed to advance into the semifinals, as she placed thirty-sixth out of 92 swimmers in the evening prelims.
Ragnheiður did not compete at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as she was pregnant with her son.
Acting
Ragnheiður has said that she always had a passion for acting and after retiring from swimming, decided to study acting. She took an 8-week "Acting for Film" course with New York Film Academy in Los Angeles, which she "loved" and then enrolled for a one-year programme. She graduated in 2015.
Personal life
Ragnheiður was married to Atli Bjarnason, a business administrator, from 2013 to 2017. Their son was born in 2013.