NCAA Men’s Championships: Maximus Williamson Pulls Off Lane 8 Stunner in 200 Free
After the first individual swim of his NCAA Championships career, Maximus Williamson needed a stroke of luck to even advance to the 200 freestyle final. The highly-touted freshman from the University of Virginia tied teammate David King for eighth place in prelims. A swim-off between the Cavaliers beckoned, until King opted to step aside.
Relieved of the pressure of a one-on-one showdown, King had a charge for Williamson.
“It really showed how selfless UVA culture is, and we’ll do anything for each other,” Williamson said. “Immediately after I got out of the pool, he was like, ‘Yo, you got this, bro, you’re swimming it tonight. I believe in you. You can do it.’ Yeah, it’s just been a roller coaster of emotions.”
Advancing to the final, Williamson stepped onto the block behind lane 8 and took it to the field, winning in a time of 1:30.03 with two others within a tenth of a second.
With a group of relatively inexperienced 200 freestylers in the middle lanes, Williamson jumped onto the pace at the start. Tennessee’s Koby Bujak-Upton took a slight advantage at the halfway point, while Stanford’s Henry McFadden made a charge. Bbut Williamson maintained his stellar pace with a 23.02 third 50 to move back into the top spot.
At the finish, Williamson had just enough to hold off Bujak-Upton’s 1:30.11 by eight hundredths.
“I definitely believed in myself that I could win, and my coaches and my teammates and my family believed in me. It was just a matter of executing,” Williamson said. “It came down last 50, and it was who wanted it more. Going into the race, I had strategized with Todd, I need to find that happy medium between my swim on the relay, going out too fast, and my prelim swim, gonna be going out too slow. And I think I nailed it pretty much. I almost said exactly the splits that I wanted to go.”
McFadden was third in 1:30.13. While Virginia has dominated women’s swimming the past six seasons, this title marked the first for the Cavalier men since Matt McLean topped the 500 free in 2011, six years before Todd DeSorbo took over as head coach.
“Following up the women’s team, it’s special, but it’s almost daunting,” Williamson said. “It’s like, ‘How are we going to achieve what they achieve?’ We look up to so many of them, just on how fast they are, how good, how deep. It’s a challenging task, but we separate our boys and girls teams just enough so that we have our own separate culture. And I think that’s really good for the boys team, especially knowing that we only have eight guys here and that we all just are heavy hitters. Any one of us can do great things.”
Williamson’s time cut four tenths from his previous best of 1:30.43, which he posted leading off Virginia’s fourth-place 800 free relay on Wednesday. Last year, Williamson set the national high school record in the 200 free at 1:30.46.
This event included almost an entirely new field compared to 2025. Six of last year’s finalists exhausted their collegiate eligibility,while Tomas Koski ended up 15th in prelims. That left McFadden as the lone returner into this championship heat. McFadden had already gotten his NCAAs off to a big start when he single-handedly willed Stanford into a runner-up finish in the 800 free relay with a field-topping split of 1:29.72.
While no one broke 1:30 in this final, one swimmer did so earlier in the meet. Bujak-Upton became the ninth man to achieve the feat leading off Tennessee’s 800 free relay Wednesday morning in 1:29.79, about a quarter-second quicker than Williamson’s winning time here.
Event 6 Men 200 Yard Freestyle
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NCAA: N 1:28.33 3/28/2025 Luke Hobson, Texas
Meet: M 1:28.33 3/28/2025 Luke Hobson, Texas
American: A 1:28.33 3/28/2025 Luke Hobson, Texas
U. S. Open: O 1:28.33 3/28/2025 Luke Hobson, Texas
Pool: P 1:29.79 3/25/2026 Koby Bujak-Upton, Tennessee
Name Year School Prelims Finals Points
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=== Championship Final ===
1 Williamson, Maximus FR Virginia 1:31.17 1:30.03 20
r:+0.59 20.57 43.37 (22.80)
1:06.39 (23.02) 1:30.03 (23.64)
2 Bujak-Upton, Koby FR Tennessee 1:30.67 1:30.11 17
r:+0.64 20.74 43.25 (22.51)
1:06.67 (23.42) 1:30.11 (23.44)
3 McFadden, Henry JR Stanford 1:30.81 1:30.13 16
r:+0.65 21.25 44.00 (22.75)
1:07.14 (23.14) 1:30.13 (22.99)
4 Navikonis, Tomas SR OSU 1:30.77 1:30.78 15
r:+0.67 21.05 43.75 (22.70)
1:07.36 (23.61) 1:30.78 (23.42)
5 Fabiani, Remi 5Y ASU 1:31.07 1:30.81 14
r:+0.62 20.88 43.69 (22.81)
1:07.21 (23.52) 1:30.81 (23.60)
6 Winkler, Kaii SO NC State 1:30.83 1:30.93 13
r:+0.66 20.82 43.95 (23.13)
1:07.43 (23.48) 1:30.93 (23.50)
7 Jones, Keaton JR California 1:30.99 1:31.08 12
r:+0.70 21.43 44.69 (23.26)
1:08.06 (23.37) 1:31.08 (23.02)
8 Schott, Mitchell SR Princeton 1:31.15 1:32.01 11
r:+0.68 21.34 44.64 (23.30)
1:08.32 (23.68) 1:32.01 (23.69)
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