{"id":640376,"date":"2026-03-28T15:23:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=640376"},"modified":"2026-03-29T09:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:16:23","slug":"ncaa-mens-championships-maximus-williamson-adds-200-im-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-mens-championships-maximus-williamson-adds-200-im-title\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Men’s Championships: Maximus Williamson Adds 200 IM Title to Cap Stellar Freshman Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Men’s Championships: Maximus Williamson Adds 200 IM Title<\/strong><\/p>\n

The promise has long been bubbling for the University of Virginia, once its talented class of young swimmers got there. Maximus Williamson<\/strong> has only stoked the flames of that potential this week.<\/p>\n

Williamson started the final night of the NCAA Championships at Georgia Tech with his second national title, a feverish final 100 to take the 200 individual medley title away from Owen McDonald<\/strong> by .09 seconds.<\/p>\n

Williamson went 1:38.48 to McDonald\u2019s 1:38.57. The Indiana senior was up by .68 seconds at the midway point, but Williamson outsplit him in breaststroke at 29.05, then took out a half-second coming home, his 23.72 the fastest in the race. Williamson won the 200 free earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

“That last 50, I just thought back to all the hard work I’ve been doing all season, how hard I\u2019ve worked, how hard my teammates have pushed me, how hard my coaches have pushed me,” he said. “And I knew that I wasn’t going to let it slip that last 50. I worked so hard all year to just be out touched, and I know the feeling of being out touched sucks. I don’t think there’s another feeling that’s worse than barely losing. I didn’t want that to happen.”<\/p>\n