Jillian Crooks

Background Following a brief residence in the United States state of Alaska in late 2021, she moved to Florida in 2022, where she trains with Total Swimmer Aquatics, and represents the Cayman Islands in international swimming competitions. She has an older brother, Jordan Crooks, who is also a competitive swimmer.

Career 2021 2020 Summer Olympics

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in Tokyo, Japan, Crooks took 41st place in the 100 metre freestyle, not advancing to the semifinals with her Cayman Islands national record setting time of 57.32 seconds. She was the youngest competitor from the Cayman Islands at the 2020 Summer Olympics in any sport, as well as the youngest Olympian from the country across all previous editions of the modern Olympic Games her country competed at. Leading up to the 2020 Olympic Games, she was one of a number of swimmers to set the Cayman Islands records at the Cayman Islands qualifying meet for the Olympic Games held in Clermont, United States.

Competing in Alaska Crooks was born and raised in the Cayman Islands. Following the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2021, she temporarily moved to the state of Alaska in the United States when she was just 15 years old to compete scholastically for Homer High School for one season. She moved to Homer, Alaska for a few months, including competing for the high school swim team, because she had a family friend who was a coach there and wanted to test out swimming in the United States, and Alaska specifically, to see if she could win a few state titles and set a few state records in the country, which she successfully did. She won two state titles and set state records in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle events. She was one of two Olympians to compete at the 2021 Alaska State High School Championship, the other being Alaska-born-and-raised Olympic gold medalist Lydia Jacoby who won breaststroke and individual medley events. Later in the month, she competed at the 2021 Junior Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia, placing tenth in the 100 metre backstroke, eleventh in the 50 metre freestyle, twelfth in the 100 metre freestyle, thirteenth in the 200 metre freestyle, and eighteenth in the 200 metre individual medley.

2022 At her first senior World Aquatics Championships, Crooks placed twenty-ninth in the 100 metre freestyle with a time of 57.24 seconds on day five of swimming competition at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, held in June at Danube Arena in Budapest, Hungary. Two days later, she competed in the 50 metre freestyle for the first time at a World Championships, placing forty-first with a time of 26.75 seconds. Six months later, as a 16-year-old at the 2022 World Short Course Championships in December in Melbourne, Australia, she placed twenty-fourth in the 50 metre butterfly with a Cayman Islands record time of 26.40 seconds. The following day, she placed twenty-sixth in the 100 metre freestyle with a Cayman Islands record time of 54.20 seconds, which was 2.16 seconds behind first-ranked preliminaries swimmer Siobhán Haughey of Hong Kong.

International championships (50 m)

International championships (25 m)

Personal best times Long course metres (50 m pool)

Event Time Meet Location Date Age Notes 50 m freestyle 25.87 2023 TYR Pro Swim Series - Mission Viejo Mission Viejo, United States 20 May 2023 16 NR 100 m freestyle 56.30 2023 TYR Pro Swim Series - Mission Viejo Mission Viejo, United States 18 May 2023 16 NR 200 m freestyle 2:03.67 2022 Futures Championships Cary, United States 27 July 2022 16 NR 50 m butterfly 27.53 2023 TYR Pro Swim Series - Mission Viejo Mission Viejo, United States 19 May 2023 16 NR 100 m butterfly 1:02.41 2023 TYR Pro Swim Series - Mission Viejo Mission Viejo, United States 20 May 2023 16 NR, h

Short course metres (25 m pool)

Event Time Meet Location Date Age Notes 100 m freestyle 54.20 h 2022 World Short Course Championships Melbourne, Australia 14 December 2022 16 NR 50 m butterfly 26.40 h 2022 World Short Course Championships Melbourne, Australia 13 December 2022 16 NR