Caeleb Dressel owns seven Olympic gold medals now, picking up five from the recent 2020 Olympic Games. In this interview he unpacks a lot.
Olympic 100 meter freestyle? It started hurting him at the 60 meter mark. Please note that the 100 free will be his first “Dressel Dissects” on youtube as soon as he settles in Naples, Italy for ISL Season 3 and gets some free time.
ISL Season 3? Will he race more than fans think? Dressel intends to race as much as possible. Competing is his happy place, but he’s going to play it by ear and see how he’s doing managing his time and general good health.
The Olympic 100 meter butterfly start and finish? Dressel breaks down his mistakes, and he does think he’s got a 49.2 loaded with a sharper turn and finish. Kristof Milak surprised him. He did not expect a 49.6 from the 200 butterfly world record holder.
4×200 free relay? Dressel wanted to swim it. That’s why he swam the prelim 200 free at U.S. Trials. Watch the video to hear his complete answer.
Mixed Medley Relay? Dressel isn’t second guessing anyone. Looking back, however, he does think leading off with a male athlete in the 100 back and 100 breast might be the best way to race that relay.
50 free? Dressel didn’t have much to say. He won the pure sprint by a wide margin — an astounding .48 — a wider margin than his other four Olympic gold medal performances.
4×100 Medley? Dressel felt that was the best race and his best swim of the entire Olympic competition. Dropping a 49.03 split while exhausted on the final night of competition is something he’s proud of.
Congrats to Caeleb and Coach Gregg Troy on their 2020 Olympic Games performance.
Dressel b-roll race video is courtesy of ISL. You can stream ISL Season 3 here.
Help Dressel improve his Instagram follower ranking. He’s ranked 5th among the most-followed swimmers on earth with 703,000 followers. Follow Caeleb Dressel on Instagram here.
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This is a Gold Medal Media production presented by SwimOutlet.com. Host Gold Medal Mel Stewart is a 3-time Olympic medalist and the co-founder of SwimSwam.com, a Swimming News website.
Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners.
No modern athlete is more emotionally intelligent than Caleb.
Great interview Mel, wish you had asked him whether he thought the 100free or 50free WR was stronger
Not being sure if he read the 50 result board right given Bruno’s reaction makes sense – you could see he was both confused and amused in the water when Bruno was just losing his mind.
Was also surprised to hear Dressel’ll regret not swimming the 200 free in college forever. Now I do kinda wish he’d pulled a 2 IM at SECs and lead off an 800 free relay there or something.
A 200 SCY free from him would’ve been insane.
I really wonder how far under 1:30 he’d be able to go. Not to take anything away from the guys that did, but they ain’t Dressel.
(Rowdy just yelling, “1:26…27…” and being disappointed with w/e one it was, ofc.)
I hope he spends more of the second half of his career trying different stuff.
Do what makes you happy
Right?? And pretty much every commenter wants him to do that, too. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.
OH and I forgot to comment on – him saying he couldn’t bust out a 45.0 100 free split “at this point in my career” was a fantastic way to phrase that.
Yeah, hope he just goes all-in to dominate the American Cornhole League.
Kind of silly how the Olympic schedule pushed 11 of his 12 swims (a pretty common event lineup) into the second half of the meet.
Yes it weird the mens and womens sprinters are missing inaction in the first half of meets…sometimes I wonder if the Campbells will ever turn up!
A lot of talk about how important “reaction time” is to CD and Troy. Maybe Rowdy isn’t as deluded as we thought?
Troy has been talking about that for the last few years. Had Dressel move the wedge forward to try to get off the blocks faster. As for Rowdy, even a stopped clock is right ….
Dressel was dominating. Wonder what Ryan Murphy has to say about that?
A Ryan Murphy interview would be so much fun!
He’d call him a b*tch.
Fantastic interview, I love how candid Dressel was in this, especially about the 4×200 and the pressure he’s facing post-Olympics. Love that he’s taking the time for his mental health and making sure that he’s ok.
agreed… and just easy to talk to…the same on and off camera…
You have to love how honest he is evaluating his own races. Not the slightest bit of defensiveness as if he is looking down on it as a 3rd party. I’d love to have Mel “host” Caleb’s review of his races.
Did you see him pop a wheelie on his riding mower? Almost fatal.
His “meh” swims won gold medals.
Everything is relative.
If I had ever went a 49 100 free I would have been stoked.
If he went 49 he’d be filthy