The Story Of The Swim-Off Sacrifice That Helped Maximus Williamson Win The 200 Free NCAA Title

2026 NCAA DIVISION I MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Dates: Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28
• Location: McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
• Defending Champions: Texas (1x)
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  • Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2

Virginia freshman Maximus Williamson won the NCAA title in the 200 freestyle Thursday night, becoming the first male in 15 years to stand atop the podium for his school. A selfless decision by his teammate helped him get to that point.

Turn the time back nine hours earlier, to the preliminary heats of the 200 free. Williamson’s sophomore teammate, David King, dropped nearly a second off his seed time of 1:32.10 to go 1:31.17. One heat later, Williamson added from his best time of 1:30.43, matching King’s mark. As the two swimmers stood together behind the blocks after Williamson’s race, they found out they were tied in eighth, set to swim-off for the final spot in the ‘A’ final.

King had a chance to race the first NCAA ‘A’ final in his career, to capitalize off a surprise performance with a night swim. Instead, he walked to the bleachers and told Virginia head coach Todd DeSorbo to let Williamson have the spot.

“There was no reason for us to waste energy swimming another 200 when we were going to both be able to score the same amount of points for our team,” King said. “I knew [Williamson] had a much faster time and was probably going to be a little bit more competitive with that field than I would have been, so I think it was definitely in the team’s best interest to let him swim back tonight.”

Upon making his decision, King and Williamson embraced each other, before King told his younger teammate, “You got it, bro, I believe in you. You can win this sh*t tonight.”

For Williamson, King’s decision and words put pressure on him to do well in finals. Williamson says that King would have “beat [his] a**” in a swim-off (which King disputes), so he wanted to make the most out of a finals swim.

“I just really didn’t want to let any of my teammates down, especially David,” Williamson said.

King’s choice was also vindicated around 20 minutes after his prelims warm-down, when his Virginia teammate Thomas Heilman told him that Williamson did, in fact, out-touch him.

To spark what King said was “just a little bit of friendly competition,” the Cavaliers went to the scorers’ table to figure out who *actually* swam faster — the touchpads can measure results down to the thousandths’ of a second. Williamson had King beat by 0.005 of a second.

Thousandths’ have decided swim meets before, like when Sweden’s Gunnar Larson was award the 1972 Olympic gold medal in the 400 IM over America’s Tim McKee. They both went 4:31.98, but Larson was 0.002 faster than McKee. But even if the roles were reversed and King beat Williamson by the thousandths, King still would have given the ‘A’ final spot to Williamson regardless.

“That’s not enough of a difference to really change anything,” King said. “He obviously has a better time. Given that his best time was a 1:30-mid, it definitely was the right decision.”

Driven by a standout back half, Williamson touched first in the 200 free final with a time of 1:30.03, becoming the fastest American freshman ever and the first freshman to win the event since Townley Haas in 2016. But don’t get it wrong: Williamson said he too would have given up the swim-off had King been the better swimmer in the event (his strongest event is the 200 back, where he’s seeded fifth).

Williamson also credits his training with King torward his success, which includes constant 200 free sets. They raced together on Virginia’s 800 free relay, which earned a surprise fourth overall finish out of the ‘A’ final.

But on a broader scale, the swim-off sacrifice and end result highlight what both Williamson and King call a “selfless, team-first mentality” at Virginia.

“I definitely couldn’t have done it without David being there by my side every day in practice,” Heilman said. “I think that shows our chemistry and our team atmosphere, just from that alone.”