Like at the 2017 and 2019 FINA World Championships, Caeleb Dressel emerged as the best male swimmer of the meet at the Olympic Games as well. In Tokyo, the American finished with five gold medals, won three individual events (50-100m free, 100m fly) and was part of two victorious relays (4x100m free, 4x100m medley), the only event he could not make any miracle was the debuting mixed medley where the US finished 5th.
Dressel was already part of the US
team five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, though back then his performance was a
modest one in his only individual event, as he came 6th in the 100m free
(clocked 48.02 – almost a full second slower than his winning effort here in
Tokyo) but he returned home as a two-time Olympic champion as he did the
lead-off leg in the free relay and received another gold as he swam in the
medley relay in the heats which came first in the final.
Dressel's medals
His breakthrough happened in the
following year in Budapest where he amassed seven gold medals at the Worlds and
repeated that two years later in Gwangju where he added an 8th medal, a silver
– the most ever by a swimmer in a single edition – and he also repeated the
unique feat of winning three world titles in one day. After those standout
performances, despite all the miseries the human mankind went through in the
past one and a half years, Dressel was destined to excel in Tokyo. And he
delivered. Not only the golds but he was the only male swimmer who broke a World
Record in an individual event, when he lowered his own mark in the 100m fly to
clock 49.45sec.
On the last day he was still busy but
pulled off both events, produced the largest winning margin ever recorded in
the 50m free Olympic finals and then his butterfly leg put the US medley relay
onto the winning track.
“I’ll stop lying to myself”
Looking back to his brilliant Olympic
days, he offered these thoughts. “That’s how the sport goes sometimes. I knew I
had to execute every race and every heat and that’s how sport goes sometimes. I
had a lot of fun, I had a good time yesterday – if I got better each day and to
end with that relay – it is really, really special. Just to sit everyone down
and put it right in our face and say this is something you can do. To see it on
the board (the world record time) is spectacular and really special"
”Despite his fantastic runs at the
World Championships, he had to recognise that the Olympics were a lot different
meet where even more was required to achieve his golden goals. “I tried to
convince myself that the Worlds were the same, and it is the same competition;
but it is a lot different here. I’m aware of that now, and I’ll stop lying to
myself – it means something different to prepare for something that happens every
four years to prepare for something that happens over 40 seconds and
20-something seconds.
“You have to be so perfect in that
moment, especially as we had to have an extra year – we’ve had a five-year
build-up to be perfect. There is so much pressure in that one moment that your
whole life boils down to a moment that takes 20 or 40 seconds. How crazy is
that?
“I wouldn’t tell myself during the
meet, but it is absolutely terrifying, but it is really fun if you look at from
a different perspective – it is something that boils down to a very specific
moment of time in the universe and that just happens to be the Olympics.”
“It is my goal is to fulfil my
potential”
Of course, if one captured five gold
medals at a single edition of the Games and leaves Tokyo as a 7-time Olympic
champion, he could barely avoid the historical comparisons.
“I think the US has been so dominant
for so long, to put my stamp on the sport is very special. Michael (Phelps) and
Mark (Spitz)... of course, I don’t want to take away from anything I’ve done
here but it is not my goal to beat anyone in particular. It is my goal to
fulfil my potential. My goal is not to beat Mark, it is like I’ve already
exceeded my expectations here and had a fun time doing it. It was not a perfect
meet at all; there was a lot of low points in this meet and mental obstacles,
more than those podium finishes. That’s the fun of it. The ups and the downs,
and you have to figure out how to roll with it and figure out how to get
better.”
Michael Phelps Teaches Swimming
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