Defending World Champion Sam Williamson Will Out for 9 Months With Gruesome Knee Injury

27-year-old Australian swimmer Sam Williamson won’t defend his World Championship in the 50 meter breaststroke after suffering an “excruciating” knee injury, according to Australian broadcaster Nine.

He was performing a running box jump to warm up for a swimming session, and as he planted his left foot, his patellar tendon snapped. The result was his kneecap halfway up his thigh.

He was taken to a doctor at the Victorian Institute of Sport, and within 24 hours underwent surgery.

He is expected to miss nine months, which includes the upcoming Australian World Championship Trials (June 9-14, Adelaide) and the World Championships later this summer in Singapore.

“To be honest, the pain was excruciating, but the pain didn’t really come anywhere near close to the immediate realisation that that was my season done and that was me done for the foreseeable future,” Williamson told Wide World of Sports.

He was scheduled to be racing in Europe last week, and said that he was feeling good about his training after “some less-than-favourable results” at the Paris Olympics last year.

“So while the pain was excruciating — I don’t think anyone’s kneecap should try to head up towards their hip — it didn’t really hold a candle or hold a flame to the understanding that that was me done for the year.”

Williamson said the doctor told him that it was one of the worst injuries of this nature that he’d ever seen.

While the 2024 World Championships were missing many of the world’s top names owed to their unusual pre-Olympic timing, the men’s sprint breaststroke races were among the best fields of the meet. They included names like Italian Nicolo Martinenghi, American Nic Fink, and World Record holder Adam Peaty.

Williamson’s 26.32 at that meet set new Australian and Oceanian records.

Williamson has also emerged as the country’s top sprint breaststroker, winning four medals on medley relays in 2023 and 2024 at the World Championships.

At the Paris Olympics, he finished 24th in prelims of the 100 breaststroke in 1:00.50, which is 1.70 seconds slower than he went in June 2024 at the Australian Olympic Trials.

As a result, Australian coaches opted for Joshua Yong (who was 12th in 59.64) for the men’s medley relay in prelims and finals and the mixed relay in finals; they used 200 specialist Zac Stubblety-Cook for heats of the mixed medley, which earned a bronze medal.

Williamson’s absence leaves the 23-year-old Yong (59.48) as the country’s top threat for the 100 breaststroke. Other young talents that could grab the second spot include 22-year-old Bailey Lello (1:00.10), 21-year-old Joshua Collett (1:00.57), and 21-year-old Haig Buckingham (1:00.78), or even 15-year-old Christopher Montana (1:02.70), if he has the kind of drop that 15-year-olds often do. Yong and Stubblety-Cook are the clear front-runners at this stage.

Williamson has committed to return and pursue the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, mentioning that the addition of the stroke 50s were a big motivator for him.