In an Instagram post today, 23-year-old Olympic finalist Jordan Crooks announced that he is taking a break from competitive swimming.
He wrote, “Thank you to the Cayman Islands, the University of Tennessee, family, and friends who’ve supported this swimming journey. For now, I’ll be stepping away from competing. Looking forward to exploring all that life has to offer. Till we meet again.”
In an interview with SwimSwam in early April, Crooks alluded to this break but stopped short of calling it a retirement, saying, “For now, I’m just going to take a step back and focus on school and just live in the NARP (non-athletic regular person) life and relax for a little bit. Get the body and the mind right, and we’ll see what the future holds. No idea what it does hold for now, but just kind of enjoying basking in what we’ve been able to accomplish this year and being super grateful for our four years at Tennessee. Wouldn’t have wanted to do it anywhere else, and we’ll see where life takes me soon.”
When we asked if he would continue swimming and potentially pursue another Olympic Games, he said, “That’s a million-dollar question that we’re still trying to figure out, but we’ll see. We’ll see where it goes. You can never rule it out, and I’m not 100% sure what we’ll do, but I’ll be here in Knoxville for the future, just kind of figuring things out one day at a time. But for now, back to the school grind.”
Crooks had an amazing sign-off to collegiate swimming at the recent NCAA Championships. He reclaimed the NCAA title in the 50 freestyle with a time of 17.91, then improved his lifetime best to 17.82 while leading off Tennessee’s victorious 200 free relay, building on their NCAA record-setting performance from the previous month at the SEC Championships.
His 17.82 was the final 50 free of his college career, adding one more sub-18 second swim to his record of six times breaking the barrier, the most in history. The only other swimmer to come close is Caeleb Dressel, who holds the all-time record of 17.63, having broken 18 seconds twice.
After a 6th–place finish in the 200 free, Crooks exploded during the prelims of the 100. He broke Dressel’s 2018 record of 39.90, swimming a 39.83 and becoming the second man to go sub-40. In the finals, Crooks posted 40.06 and took 2nd to rival Josh Liendo’s own sub-40 second swim (39.99). Crooks also threw down the fastest relay split in history (39.36) in the last swim of his college career, anchoring Tennessee to an NCAA record and the team’s second relay title of the meet.
The Matt Kredich-trained sprinter made history at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, becoming the first man to break the 20-second barrier in the 50 SCM free (19.90)—a feat many of the biggest sprinters in the sport’s history came up just short of achieving. It was a legendary swim from Crooks in the Budapest semifinals as he lowered the 20.08 world record he set in prelims. The next evening, he defended his world title with a time of 20.19, adding a second medal to his haul after taking bronze in the 100 free.
At the Paris Olympics, he made history as the first Caymanian to reach an Olympic swimming final, touching 8th in the 50 free. He set a national record of 21.51 in the prelims, then posted 21.54 in the semifinals and 21.64 in the final. Prior to Paris, he didn’t have much international experience on the long-course stage, but did finish 6th in the 50 free and 7th in the 100 free at the 2023 Worlds in Fukuoka.
As someone old enough to be his father, this sounds to me like he has real perspective, intelligence and maturity for his age. Good luck, Jordan!
In which UF and UGA homers can’t even appreciate the dude who went sub-:18 six different times and is also the fastest 100 (yd) freestyler in history, not to mention WR holder in the SCM 50. This is a dude who went hard every race and threw down more ridiculously fast times than anyone in history (in SCY sprinting) — and who frequently went faster on relays than his individual races (including an otherworldly 39.3 (!) in the 100 free). Some might find these facts endearing… but not the haters.
Hate on, haters.
Congrats to Jordan on an amazing NCAA career. Would love to see him continue to compete, but do appreciate how easy that is for me to… Read more »
Everyone needs a break sometime. I’m happy Jordan prioritizes himself.
Congratulations to Jordan – He impresses with his clear thinking and humility. Certainly he will continue to do great things in this next chapter of life. What some people in life do fully transcends swimming in a concrete hole in the ground filled with water. Looking forward to your return to swimming OR whatever path you choose. You have given many people joy through your athletisism and class! THANK YOU
Weak
Put your name on it and say it to Jordan face to face….
We’ll wait…
Johnny Kulow’s Bruner account???? Chill bro…
A true bathtub swimmer, he realized he can’t spam undies and flip turns. Still love the guy but he’s never gonna medal in long course
Good timing to do it now and not in 2027. A much earned break for Jordan, and I hope he can come back even better when he decides he’s ready!
I don’t want to jump to conclusions but I believe that it is very possible this guy went into college with the idea of breaking the 17.6 record, spent 4 years grinding for it, and at the end of the day came up just short.
That would do a mental number on just about anyone to put in that much effort for that long and to not achieve your goal is and would be heart breaking.
My hope is that if that is the reason for this break Jordan realizes that he is still one of if not the best swimmers in the world today.
And one of the best swimmers of all time.
Based on interviews I’ve seen, Jordan seems like a really smart guy. There’s no way he was delusional enough to think he had a chance of going 17.5
Are swimmers not born in the USA obsess over SCY records? I very much doubt it but might of course be wrong in some cases.
It’s called self projecting by Americans.
Maybe, but he probably adapted to it eventually. Records are records
This says more about your own goal oriented mindset (and how you’d react to “failure”) than anyone else.
He’s literally done things no-one else has done….
Swimming competitively is such a grind. On top of the added pressure of being a student athelete. As other people have said, it’s really good timing for a break. I’d actually welcome the normalisation of these type of breaks. If/when they come back they can hit it hard.