Olympic and World Champion Caeleb Dressel competed at the Richmond Pro Swim, surprising fans with a 200 free personal best time, 1:47.4. Training under Coach Gregg Troy, doing hard, honest work in-season, 1:47 is a lightning fast swim. It appears Dressel intends to be ready to race at that distance…if called upon. He did, in fact, confirm that in this interview.
Swimming the 4×200 relay at 2019 World Championships this summer puts Dressel – potentially – in contention for 9 medals:
- 50 free
- 50 fly
- 100 free
- 100 fly
- 4×100 free relay
- 4×100 medley relay
- 4×200 free relay
- 4×100 mixed medley relay
- 4×100 mixed free relay
Racing for 9 medals is a heavy lift, but I think it’s something swim fans would love to see.
In other exclusive news, Dressel confirmed he’s competing in the International Swimming League. ISL is commanding a lot of starpower, and with Dressel on the blocks, that pro league is covering all the bases. Dressel also confirmed he is not competing at the FINA Champions Series. The timing is wrong, and he needs to focus on training.
PREDICTIONS for Dressel’s 200 free split on the relay….if he swims the 4×200 free relay.
- 1:45.5 flying start
If Dressel hits his taper, he’ll be a valuable asset on the 4×200, inching Team USA toward reclaiming gold in that event at the World LC Champs level.
What do you think?
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wait a second….sprinters can swim the 200?
someone notify USRPT….
Michael Andrew beat Caeleb Dressel by 4.3 seconds in the 200 IM at the Richmond PSS, and Dressel is the fastest 200 yard IMer ever, and Dressel beat Michael Andrew by .14 seconds in the 50 free at the same meet, so I’m not sure what we’re supposed to notify USRPT about?
and i want him to break the 100 fly world record… lets see if we both get what we want.
I can see the man going a 1:41.99. Thoughts?
I think You are watching SCM
I don’t know about that one chief.
I would like to see that record go down.
Not yet haha
Maybe if he was drafting off Katie Ledecky…
Not sure you know how drafting works
The mixed relays will help dressel pad his stats. Phelps is frowning in the corner.
Nah, he’s playing with his kids.
Anyone else remembers how Caleb said that he had been doing almost all IM training his senior year leading up to NCAA’s where he went 17 in the 50 free? Now he’s saying he wants to start training for the 200 free. Anyone saying that this is going to take away from his speed is sadly mistaken if anything this should be great for his sprints.
Surely if Dressel begins to focus on the 200 free more then his sprint speed is going to get slower. There is no point in him doing the relay when he could still make history by winning 8 golds and not doing the 800 free relay.
Pieter van den hoogenband would disagree
He didn’t have as many relays though
I doubt training for the 200 would significantly effect his yardage, he already puts in the yards by virtue of the team he trains with. They could just shift some of his longer aerobic work to short, fast 200 pace work and he’ll be fine. The raw conditioning and power is already there, he just needs to hone it a bit with some specificity.
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Got it?
1:47.5 is NOT 1:45.5 with a flying start. If that was true, we would have a bunch of guys at 1:45.5 or better. As a matter of fact, there were 10 guys under 1:47.5 last summer at Nationals. CD was not one of them.
No, but 1:47.5 at a Pro Swim Series meet might just translate to that with a full taper.
Florida pro group was rested for that meet. Not going to call it a full taper, but many of his foreign teammates needed to hit their Worlds cuts, so they were all on a rest – including Caeleb.
Nobody said that. He’s not rested for Richmond in April.