A Refreshed Caeleb Dressel is Surging Toward Paris With Momentum
Following his signature explosive start, Caeleb Dressel emerged ahead. As he and seven competitors barreled down the length of the temporary 50-meter pool inside Lucas Oil Stadium, the 27-year-old University of Florida Gator never surrendered the lead. He touched in 21.41 to secure the win in the 50 freestyle and his first individual event at the Paris Olympics. Dressel raised both arms in the air, pumped his fist and embraced runner-up Chris Guiliano, who had secured the spot to join him in racing the event at the Games.
Twenty-four hours later, Dressel scored another wire-to-wire triumph in the 100 butterfly, building almost a body-length lead on the field as he came to the wall in 50.19. The time was just off the fastest in the world, but enough to indicate that Dressel has a real chance to successfully defend the gold medal he won three years ago in Tokyo. After this race, Dressel climbed on the lane line and smacked the water in celebration.
Dressel’s lineup for Paris will include those races plus the 400 freestyle relay—he finished third in the 100 free at Trials, just missing a chance for another individual event—as well as the men’s 400 medley relay and possibly the mixed-gender version of that event.
To an onlooker unaware of Dressel’s journey in the years since the last Games, this performance might have looked like a simple continuation of his five-gold-medal performance in Tokyo, a swimmer perhaps slightly past his peak, but still holding on and playing a key role in the pool.
On the contrary, this shortened quadrennium has been one of the toughest stretches in Dressel’s life.
BEGINNING OF AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
In 2022, Dressel left early from the World Championships and then took eight months away from swimming to address his mental health. He returned to the sport only when he felt fully ready, and the comeback was far from smooth, particularly when he entered U.S. nationals in 2023 and did not come close to qualifying for the World Championships. Since he was early in his comeback, Dressel and his coaches entered with low expectations, but it was still jarring when he did not qualify for the A-final in either sprint freestyle race at that selection meet.
This year, even as he was back to his usual level of fast swimming at Trials, Dressel still faced his private moments of struggle and self-doubt.
Earlier in his career, Dressel had been unofficially deemed the successor to Michael Phelps, the sort of multi-event star capable of dominating the sport. Indeed, Dressel joined Phelps in some exclusive clubs, winning seven gold medals at one World Championships and winning more than two individual gold medals at a single Olympics, but it took time to accept that he should not feel pressure to live up to Phelps comparisons.
“I used to have a little shame that I’m not Michael. I probably never will be Michael,” Dressel said. “I’m very proud of the things I have done in this sport and will continue to do, but, yeah, there will never be another Michael.”
At this year’s Trials, Dressel grappled with the knowledge that he was not reaching his best times—not that he was struggling by any means…not that anyone had declared he must go best times or expected that he would. But Dressel is a perfectionist, a quality that can be a blessing at times and a curse at others, and his struggles in recent years have centered around reassuring himself that he is good enough, even without hitting the loftiest of goals.
Describing the results of the 100 free final, when he finished third behind Guiliano and Jack Alexy, Dressel said, “I came up short. I was a couple tenths off my best. I don’t know. I’m doing everything I can. Some things are out of my control.”
Never mind that he clocked 47.53, his fastest result since winning Olympic gold in Tokyo and two seconds faster than he swam in 2021. Never mind that his time combined with his competitors makes the U.S. men big favorites for gold in the 400 free relay.
At the conclusion of Trials, Dressel acknowledged, “I don’t know if I’ll ever go a best time ever again, and that’s tough to say out loud.” Few 27-year-olds can match their top times from their early 20s, but that notion irks Dressel. He added, “I’m still working harder than ever, finding outlets, finding every path I can take to shave those couple tenths.”
A HEALTHY PERSPECTIVE AND BALANCE
Dressel has reached a point where swimming provides more joy than it takes away, and that’s why he has remained in the sport following his extended hiatus. But he still yearns for a time when the sport was simpler.
“I would love if I could get back to the point when I was 5 years old: You don’t care what your meet warm-up is, you don’t even know times yet…or if you do swim a time, you drop 20 seconds in the 50 free,” Dressel said. “Those honestly were some of the best days. It was just because it was simply swimming. That’s all that it was. You were just swimming.”
Dressel has dedicated too much of his life to the sport to ever get back to that carefree approach to swimming: The mental toughness required to take on an elite swimmer’s training regimen and then race against the best in the world are plenty to crush a child’s naive view of the sport. But as he prepares for his third Olympics, Dressel will carry with him a healthy perspective and balance that were lacking in his last trip and prior to his hiatus.
One particular source of bliss for Dressel: the presence of his wife, Meghan, and son, August, who was born in February.
“When you make an Olympic team, no one can take that away from you, you’re going to be an Olympian the rest of your life, and something that’s really special is my son got to watch me make an Olympic team,” Dressel said. “And no one can take that away. He’s not going to remember it. I will tell him, trust me, I got photos so I can prove it.”
A TRUE LEADER
This year, Dressel is eagerly embracing the role that Nathan Adrian played on Dressel’s first Olympic team: welcoming rookies in events, including his own, making them feel like they belong on the Olympic level and providing them tips for success.
“I thought I was supposed to hate the guy (Adrian) when I met him. I thought you aren’t supposed to like your competitors, but he just showed me what a true leader is on this team,” Dressel said. “He was the larger-than-life image for me, and turns out he was just a guy who is just really fast in the 100 free. I think that’s what all the leaders on Team USA have done. Before you know it, you’re one of the leaders.”
Dressel remembers watching Adrian win gold in the 100 free at the London Olympics four years before becoming his teammate in Rio, and similarly, most of the Paris newcomers were glued to their screens as Dressel won his five gold medals in Rio. Dressel is more than a decade older than the youngest male swimmer on the team, Thomas Heilman, who is set to join him racing the 100 fly at these Olympics.
RARE ACCOMPLISHMENT IN SIGHT
Having already won seven Olympic gold medals in his career, Dressel will be a medal favorite and contender for gold in both of his individual events plus two or three relays this time around, and that could put him on the precipice of another exceedingly rare accomplishment. Phelps has won 23 Olympic gold medals in his career, but no other Olympian in any sport has more than nine. A four-way tie for second-place on the all-time list for gold medals includes Mark Spitz. It’s a realistic possibility for Dressel to match or exceed that number in Paris.
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Yes, Dressel is a completely different swimmer than Phelps, with vastly divergent strengths and few overlapping events, but Dressel’s ability to bring elite form at critical moments has already made him one of the sport’s all-time greats—just like Phelps—with a great chance this summer to expand his legacy.
