CAELEB DRESSEL
HOMETOWN: Green Cove Springs, FL EVENT: Swimming
Michael Phelps is a tough act to follow, but Caeleb Dressel has fairly earned comparisons to the retired GSOAT (greatest swimmer of all time). While Phelps was soaking up the media glare, the decade younger Dressel was quietly carving his own place in the U.S. record books. In 2012, he became the first swimmer younger than 16 to beat 20 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle relay, then broke a 100-yard freestyle under-16 record that had stood for 22 years. After bringing two relay golds home from Rio in 2016, he has only gotten faster. At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, he won eight medals, and—gasp!—broke Phelps’ record in the 100-meter butterfly.
Unlike many top swimmers, Dressel wasn’t born in the water, playing football as a kid until he switched his focus to swimming. Even after taking a six-month break in high school, he was recruited by the storied swimming program at the University of Florida. Since 2019, he has been a marquee attraction in the splashy new International Swimming League, and broke world records in the 50-meter freestyle and 100-meter individual medley. Maybe the most valuable Olympics training came from a two-hour window during which he swam in five races, demonstrating crazy recovery ability. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had swimming in my life,” he said of the experience.
So, yes, he’s a legit gold-medal contender in seven events, provoking speculation over whether he could pull off the impossible and surpass Phelps’ eight golds in a single Olympics. “That’s not why I’m in this sport,” Dressel has politely protested. “It’s not to beat Michael.” But he could be facing a challenge left over from the Phelps era. Ryan Lochte, defying nature at 36, actually beat Dressel in the 200-meter individual medley in early March in San Antonio. Maybe Dressel’s head wasn’t in the pool, having just wed his high school swim club sweetheart.
We suspect he’ll wash away any cobwebs in time for Tokyo. For as Dressel himself has said, “The good thing about true perseverance is that it can’t be stopped by anything besides death.”