The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Dressel joins elite club with dazzling Olympics
There was no joy in the process for Caeleb Dressel. A virtual cocoon of an Olympics, cut off from with his wife, family and friends back in Florida. Yet, in the end, it was totally worth it.
TOKYO >> There was no joy in the process for Caeleb Dressel.
Sleepless nights. Hardly any appetite. A virtual cocoon of an Olympics, cut off from his wife, family and friends back in Florida.
Yet, in the end, it was totally worth it.
Arriving in Tokyo as one of the games’ most-hyped athletes, Dressel met the moment with one scintillating performance after another.
By the time he was done July 31, the 24-year-old had piled up five gold medals — one for every race he had a chance in — to claim his place on swimming’s Mount Rushmore.
Only four other swimmers had captured five golds at a single Olympics: Michael Phelps (who did it three times), Mark Spitz, Kirstin Otto and Matt Biondi.
Now it’s five. Dressel capped his Games with a dominant victory in the 50-meter freestyle and a dazzling butterfly leg on the U.S. team that broke a 12-year-old world record to capture gold in the 4×100 medley relay.
Dressel reveled in the triumph, but he also revealed the grim toll it took on him.
“I’m really glad to be done,” he said. “It’s not an easy week at all. I guess some parts were extremely enjoyable. I would say the majority of them were not.”
Dressel gave little hint of the anguish behind the scenes.
When it’s time to race, his look is always one of steely determination, a cold-blooded desire to touch the wall first no matter how bad it hurts.
He undoubtedly psyches out some opponents before he ever dives in the pool, an imposing figure with a massive sleeve of a tattoo that starts atop his left shoulder and winds all the way down to the wrist, basically enveloping his entire arm.
There are images of an American flag, orange blossoms, oranges, magnolias, a bald eagle, a bear, an alligator — essentially, a tribute in ink to his home state.
“I’m really good at hiding my emotions,” Dressel said. “I can put a pretty good show on before each race, but once I shut it off, it just floods out.”
Indeed, there is a sensitive side that few ever see. Dressel passed what little free time he had by journaling about his Tokyo experiences. The tears flowed freely when no one was looking.
The grind of swimming six events in a little over a week, not to mention the stress of living up to all that was expected of him, pushed Dressel to his breaking point.
“You can’t sleep right, you can’t nap, you’re shaking all the time, you don’t eat,” he said. “I’ve probably lost 10 pounds.”
No one could have envisioned what Dressel was going through when they saw the way he dominated in the pool.
His brilliant technique off the dive, a porpoise-like wiggling that was only visible to cameras beneath the surface, ensured he had the lead as soon as his head popped out of the water.
The only individual race that was ever in doubt was the 100 freestyle, which Dressel led all the way but had to work hard to hold off defending Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers by sixhundreds of a second.
In the 100 butterfly, Dressel broke his own world record and held off Hungarian star Kristof Milak, winner of the 200 fly, by a relatively comfortable 0.23 seconds.