Rising Stanford Sophomore Charlotte Hook Dealing With Lower Back Injury This Summer

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Rising Stanford sophomore Charlotte Hook revealed to SwimSwam the reason for her absence from next week’s 2023 U.S. National Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she was poised to make an international team this summer.

The 19-year-old former Junior National Team member said she’s been suffering from inflammation of joints in her lower back that has left her at “around 50-60%” physically. Hook said the exact cause of the injury is known.

“I’ve unfortunately been dealing with a lower back injury for the last two months and haven’t really been able to train and only just recently got back into practicing,” Hook said. “So my priority this summer is just getting back into shape and to training at 100%.”

Hook, who just finished her first year of collegiate swimming, has a lifetime best of 2:07.87 in the 200 meter fly. That time, swum in 2019, would have made her the 5th seed in the event.

More recently, she swam 2:10.64 at the US Open in December, 2:09.24 at Futures last summer, and 2:08.80 at last year’s U.S. International Team Trials, which was good for a 3rd-place finish. She was .87 seconds away from making the team last year, and with so many teams being chosen this year, she was a strong contender to make a U.S. team this summer, if not the World Championship squad.

That’s especially true after a freshman year where she swam a new personal best of 1:52.48 in the 200 fly mid-season, which dropped about three-tenths of a second off her previous best time. She went on to place 6th in that event at NCAAs.

Hook is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, where she swam for the TAC Titans alongside her Stanford classmate Claire Curzan.