To no one’s surprise, Caeleb Dressel takes home Male Athlete of the Year at the 2017 Golden Goggle Awards.
In his acceptance speech, Dressel recognized World Championship team captains Nathan Adrian and Matt Grevers for their leadership in Budapest. He also mentioned “my only fear in the sport is plateauing, not with medals or times, but learning.” The award was presented by Natalie Coughlin and former Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin.
The ballot for this award was a thin one, with only two U.S. men standing out this past summer at the World Championships. Dressel, a Florida Gator, was up against the now former Georgia Bulldog Chase Kalisz, who had a phenomenal season that culminated with a sweep of the IM events at the World Championships.
However, this one was all Dressel, as he followed up a jaw-dropping performance at the NCAA Championships with a mind boggling seven gold medals at the World Championships.
At NCAAs, Dressel three-peated in the 50 freestyle and repeated in the 100, breaking the American and NCAA records in the latter. However, perhaps his most impressive swim at the meet was the 100 fly, where he dethroned two-time champion Joseph Schooling in a new American and NCAA record of 43.58. He also joined Vlad Morozov in the elusive sub-18 second club for a 50 free relay split, hitting marks of 17.99, 17.71 and 17.93.
Despite his incredible NCAAs, his World Championship performance was what won him this award. After his performance at both NCAAs and U.S. World Trials, everyone knew Dressel was gonna be good in Budapest, but he really blew everyone away.
He won seven golds – three individual – tying the GOAT Michael Phelps for the most gold medals ever won at a World Championships. Individually he won the 50 free, 100 free and 100 fly, and added relay golds in the 4×100 free and medley in both the men’s and mixed categories. He added American record marks in both sprint freestyle events, and claimed another in the 50 fly where he finished 4th. Both mixed relays also broke world records.
In the 100 fly, he swam the fastest ever textile time in prelims (50.08), lowered it in the semis (50.07), and then became the 2nd fastest performer in history in the final with a time of 49.86, narrowly missing Phelps’ 2009 world record of 49.82. He also became the first swimmer to ever win three gold medals on one day, when he tripled the 50 free, 100 fly and mixed 400 free relay. His 100 fly also won him the Golden Goggle for Male Race of the Year.
Despite not walking away with the win, Kalisz truly had an incredible year. After winning a close silver in the 400 IM in Rio, the final in Budapest really wasn’t close, as the 23-year-old lowered his PB to 4:05.90 to win by almost two-and-a-half seconds. Prior to that swim, he won the 200 IM over a stacked field in another personal best of 1:55.56. Before this year he had never competed in the event at a major international meet due to the longtime reign of Phelps and Ryan Lochte.
Along with his World Championship performance, Kalisz won the men’s Arena Pro Series title and added another NCAA title to his resume with an American record breaking performance in the 400 IM.
Caeleb, although doing well at worlds,with three individual golds, is nowhere near the goats five individual golds from melbourne 07
Lededcky doesn’t get as much attention as dressel because of a lot of reasons combined.
1) sprinting has always been more exciting than distance swimming and sprinting races are usually closer thus making them more thrilling.
2) there are usually more and better rivalries in the shorter races ( both male and female) than in the distance races ( usually just male). For example both male and female sprints and have solid rivalries. E.g. caeleb dressel and Joseph schooling, chad le clos and james guy on butterfly. it is very likely that dressel will develop a rivalry with kyle chalmers and duncan scott in the 100 free and a rivalry with Ben proud in the 50 free and 50 fly.… Read more »
Ledecky didn’t break any major records. That’s it. I was commenting/reading comments left and right when she was exploding and the distance to second made it all the more impressive.
USA swimming needs to pick a different date or time of year for these awards. He was taken away from a meet where people were expecting to watch him. Why not have it in April when not much is going on? A weekend before T’giving is wrought with rest meets for college swimmers.
meeee – our understanding is that Caeleb leaving the meet had nothing to do with Golden Goggles.
Two incredible swimmers, Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel, but, since last Worlds to this week, Dressel has had a lot more comments than Ledecky.
The ratio is approximately 6:1, even if Ledecky swims a new AR in the 1650 yds and Dressel a huge PB but “only” a top ten performance in the 200 im.
Dressel’s the shiny new toy. Part of the challenge for Ledecky, as it was for Phelps, will be continuing to challenge herself when accolades in off-Olympic years don’t come pouring in and hype is non-existent. Ho-hum, just another insane 1650. Nothing to see here.
Ledecky’s swim being faster than a lot of men’s team records made me re-realize that she’s sort of incredible.
You’re 100% right on the “shiny new toy” thing. We already know Ledecky won a billion medals at the Olympics.
Ultimately male athletes will usually always get more attention.
Maybe. I think it’s more Ledecky is breaking her own records and is a known quantity while 2017 has really been Dressel’s breakout year.
This is slightly true,but it doesn’t explain the major gap of attention we’re seeing . I think Donald is spot on about how what dressel is doing is new,and ledecky we simply take for granted now. Also I would like to add that the way dressel swims with the beautiful technique and flawless underwaters and turns is bound to attract more attention. Simply the way he swims is a wow factor not to mention the times are insane. Ledecky doesn’t have bad technique,but the way she swims isn’t as beautiful. It’s more that she just motors ahead and crushes everyone else.
Sprinting has always been more exciting than distance swimming. Though the men’s 400 freestyle has had some thrilling races.
Last year’s men’s 1650 at NCAAs was insane. One of the best races across the field in any event of all time.
Where’s the video. I want to see the video of golden goggles.
First of all, no brainer that he gest the award. Second, I don’t think his most impressive swim at NCAAs was the 100 fly. He got A LOT better in the 100 fly from then until Worlds, as Schooling can attest. I think his 40.0 100 free, coming so late in the meet as his 13th swim, was by far the most impressive.
What would he have gone if he could flip turn the 100 fly scyds ?
As an old fogey who had to abide by completely different rules for breaststroke and for backstroke turns, questions like this drive me crazy. You might as well ask, “How much faster would his backstroke be if he could swim on his stomach?”
I’m not sure but I think Caeleb was only a three-peat in the 50 free at NCAAs last year. He didn’t A final his freshmen year in the 100 free.
This is a fact, he was 42.46 as a freshman for 11th. Crazy to think he was then 40.46 the next year…
Yeah, especially since Troy was going to “ruin him” as a sprinter. Funny how that worked out.
I agree – it’s kind of funny how some people think Troy is only a good coach for “distance” or middle distance swimmers. I used to swim for him (many years ago) and can say first hand he knows how to coach swimmers in each event.
His freshmen year he was coming off a six month break the summer before. he just wasn’t in the same form that he was in the following year
Only threepeated the 50 at NC’s, he missed the A final of the 100 in 2015.