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Sam Short flirted with a world record and Kaylee McKeown sacrificed what loomed as a near-certain Commonwealth Games gold medal but it was Sam Williamson’s remarkable victory after a horrific knee injury last year that provided the feel-good story on the opening night of the Australian swimming trials in Sydney.
Just 13 months after rupturing his patellar tendon in a freak gym accident, Williamson won the men’s 100m breaststroke to secure selection for next month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the Pan Pacific Championships in California before telling reporters with a big grin: “I’m f—ing back.”
After “seeing my knee halfway up my thigh” following a botched box jump, Williamson spent months learning to walk again. On Monday night, the 2024 world champion in the 50m breaststroke completed one of Australian swimming’s most stunning comebacks, touching the wall in 59.07 seconds, just outside his personal best of 58.80.
The 28-year-old admitted he did not truly believe a return to this level was possible until last week.
“I’ll probably go home and have a little cry tonight and just process it all,” Williamson said. “It’s a dream come true to be able to say I’m back. It just makes all those mornings where I wanted to throw in the towel worth it.
“I quite literally had to learn to walk again and then had to learn to swim again. Lying on the surgeon’s table, I didn’t think I was going to be back.
“Knowing that I was getting further and further behind with each day made just getting out of bed each morning an impossible task. Every single morning, I woke up and I wanted to throw in the towel but every single morning there was someone in the gym waiting for me.
“I genuinely thought it was going to be a career-ending injury.”
Making an Australian team is always special, as stars such as Short, McKeown, Lani Pallister and Mollie O’Callaghan would attest to again on Monday night. But Williamson’s return, given everything he has endured over the past year, was the talk of the pool deck.
“Mentally, it’s chalk and cheese to the person I was at 18 months ago,” Williamson said. “I think after that injury and everything that I’ve overcome, it’s nothing that’s going to knock me down now.”
In the first final of the six-day meet, 45 days out from the Commonwealth Games, Short seriously threatened the 400m freestyle world record that was lowered by Germany’s Lukas Märtens since last year.
The Australian was 0.22 seconds under world record pace at the halfway mark and still 0.01 seconds ahead with one lap remaining, before his arms and lungs began to really burn, with the knowledge that Märtens’ last lap in that race was particularly strong.
Short stopped the clock at 3:40.67, still a personal best by 0.01 seconds and his fastest time since 2023, yet his reaction in the warm-down pool after coach Damien Jones relayed his splits suggested it was a case of mixed emotions for the former world champion, who said he would give his “right leg” to get under that world record.
Ian Thorpe’s Commonwealth record of 3:40.08, set in 2002, remains intact, while the Australian great’s then world record of 3:40.59 during the Sydney Olympics in the same pool was also narrowly out of reach for Short. Olympic silver medallist Elijah Winnington finished second in 3:44.17.
With Märtens absent from both the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs, Short will not get another crack at his rival until next year’s world championships in Budapest.
“I know there’s room to go. I’m not surprised by that time,” Short said a year on from his world championship silver medal behind Märtens, in a time of 3:42.37. “I’ve done some pretty crazy stuff [in training]. I knew I was in red-hot shape. Jeez it hurt in the last 50.
“I’m kind of obsessed with that 3:39 barrier. I work my bum off every day to get it. I know I stuffed up big time on one of those turns. I wish I could race Lukas this year.”
Pallister took out her 400m final in 3:59.72 but admitted she wanted to be quicker, having had a breakthrough world championships last year in Singapore where she made the podium in the 800m and 1500m freestyle.
Meanwhile, McKeown will forgo a likely gold medal at the Commonwealth Games after being struck down by illness which forced her to miss the women’s 200m individual medley (IM).
The Australian record-holder in the event, McKeown withdrew from the 200m IM heats on Monday morning but soldiered on to win the 50m backstroke final.
While McKeown is known primarily as a backstroker, having won gold in the 100m and 200m at both the Olympics and world championships, the 200m IM loomed as a prime medal opportunity at the Commonwealth Games due to the absence of reigning world champion Summer McIntosh.
McKeown said she knew on Friday, due to illness, that she would need to pull back her schedule, which already featured four individual events.
With three swimmers in Jenna Forrester (2:09.40), Ella Ramsay (2:09.40) and Tara Kinder (2:10.14) all going under Swimming Australia’s qualifying time in the 200m IM final, it means McKeown cannot race the event in Glasgow.
“You can’t help those things in life. Unfortunately, it’s just the way the dice have rolled for me,” McKeown said.
At this stage in her career, already with four individual Olympic gold medals to her name, missing a 200m IM event at the Commonwealth is not the end of the world.
She would rather dominate the backstroke events and ensured she qualified for another national team by pipping her close friend O’Callaghan by 0.06 seconds in the one-lap dash.
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Tom Decent is the chief sports writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.