UVA Swimming: ‘Hoos win 22 medals at 2025 World University Games

The UVA Swimming team won 22 medals, including 19 golds, at the 2025 World University Games, which concluded on Wednesday in Berlin.

Maxine Parker, a 2024 alum, won six medals at the Games, including five golds. She closed out the meet by taking gold in the 50m Free on Wednesday, before anchoring the 4×100 Medley Relay in the final event.

Parker also helped the U.S. squad to record-setting times in the finals of both the mixed and the women’s 4×100 Free Relays earlier in the week, in addition to winning an individual bronze in the 100m Freestyle.

Leah Hayes, a rising sophomore, won five gold medals, including individual golds in both the 200m and 400m Individual Medleys. Hayes set the FISU record in the 200m IM in the semifinals on Monday with a 2:10.01, only to top her own mark in the finals with a 2:09.48.

Hayes also helped the U.S. to relay wins in the 4×100 Free, 4×100 Medley and 4×200 Free. The United States went undefeated in relays at the meet.

Rising sophomore David King won an individual silver in the 200m Backstroke (1:56.00) after winning three relay golds, including swimming with Parker in the Mixed 4×100 Free Relay final.

King, a graduate of Western Albemarle High School, is the young man who wrote to us earlier this month with the odd defense of associate head coach Gary Taylor, who is serving a two-year probation after admitting to emotional misconduct of athletes that he’d coached at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics, the competitive swim team at the Piedmont Family YMCA, saying “the kids that quit at Cavalier Aquatics had horrible attitudes and couldn’t take constructive criticism.”

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ICYMI

• UVA All-American: ‘The kids that quit at Cavalier Aquatics had horrible attitudes’

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Tess Howley, a rising junior, set a FISU record in the 200m Butterfly. Howley posted a 2:05.20 in the semifinals, the second-fastest in the world this year, the 15th-fastest time in history, and ranks as the third-fastest US performer in history. Howley won the gold in the event on Wednesday with a 2:05.69 in the finals.

Emma Weber, a rising senior, won golds in two individual events: the 50m and 100m Breaststroke (30.61; 1:07.09). She also won a relay gold in the 4×100 Medley Relay.

Cavan Gormsen, a rising junior, won two individual medals, gold in the 200m Free (1:57.21) and silver in the 400m Free (4:07.64). She also won a relay gold in the 4x200m Free Relay.