Ryan Phelan

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Ryan Phelan (born 1975) is an Australian television presenter best known as being the main host of Network Ten's Sports Tonight.

[edit] Career

He was born in Ayr, Queensland and moved to Brisbane when he was 6 years old. He always had an interest in English and Drama while growing up but it was not until he was 15 that he realised he wanted to be a journalist. He set out to achieve this goal by gaining work experience for every newspaper he could. After beginning as an errand-boy, he soon landing a co-hosting job on local TV station, Briz 31.

Afterwards he relocated to Sydney and worked as a presenter for Sky Racing where he produced, wrote and hosted the award-winning harness racing program, "In the Gig". After three years working at Sky he was offered a big-time job working as a reporter for Sports Tonight a show on the mainstream television network, Ten. Eight months after reporting for the show, he landed the coveted role of presenter. Alongside Sports Tonight, Phelan reported for Network Ten on various other sports events including Clipsal 500, the 2003 US Women's Open, the final Melbourne Cup covered by Ten in 2001 and the 2005 City to Surf.

In 2005, he won the Cleo Bachelor of the Year competition run by Cleo Magazine.^[1]

In late 2006, Phelan resigned from Channel Ten and to take up a role with US sports network ESPN where amongst other journalist activities Phelan co-hosted Sportscenter (Pacific Rim Edition).

After leaving ESPN in 2007, Phelan then became part of the Fox Sports News team. He presented the sport during the summer of 2007/08 on the Nine Network's Today Show filling in for Cameron Williams, which is being seen as an auditioning role for a larger role with Nine's Wide World of Sport.

[edit] Personal life

Phelan married at the age of 18 but was divorced 8 years later. He has 2 children. In 2006, Phelan began dating Trisha Broadbridge, widow of Melbourne Demons AFL player Troy Broadbridge, who died in Thailand in the 2004 Tsunami, this relationship ended when Phelan relocated to the USA.