Capers Williamson (born October 13, 1992) is an American athlete and Olympian who throws the javelin.[1]
Career
Raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Thompson is a 2014 graduate of Wade Hampton High School.[2] Williamson competed in the NCAA for the football and track and field teams at The Citadel Military College of South Carolina from 2010 to 2016. He was originally recruited as a football quarterback to The Citadel, but, after seeing him throw a football, a teammate suggested that he try out javelin. At The Citadel, he competed in high jump and javelin.[3] He won the Southern Conference Outdoor Championships in the javelin in 2015 and 2016. However, in his time in the NCAA, he failed to advance to an NCAA Championship.
At the 2023 USA Outdoor Championships, Williamson placed second to Curtis Thompson and qualified for the 2023 World Athletics Championships. He also represented the U.S. in November 2023 at the Pan American Games. At that competition, he placed fourth.
In 2024, Williamson threw a season's best at his second Olympic Trials with a 79.57m throw to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Personal life
In the lead up to the 2018 U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Williamson commented, "Javelin's saved my life, and I owe my life to javelin. I should literally be in prison or dead."[4]
Williamson has struggled with drug addiction throughout his career. In 2023, he flipped a Chevrolet Camaro going 130 miles per hour while taking Xanax and beer. He told The Greenville News, "I flipped a Camaro going 130 miles an hour and should be dead. You know what I mean? I had a helicopter over my head looking for me in the Santee Cooper swamp." He started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and was sober for 90 days when he threw 79.07 meters in 2024 – at the time the #1 mark in the country that year.[4]
