10-time Olympic swimming medalist Caeleb Dressel is happy to be back on his Florida farm after the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. His Olympic results were mixed. He fought hard, earning more golds, but he didn’t have the Olympics he wanted. At a minimum, he’s just glad he did it, went to Paris, because there were two moments when he thought he might not go at all.
Dressel thought a repeat of the 2022 World Championship would happen, when he abruptly left in the middle of the competition.
After making The U.S. Olympic Team at the U.S. Olympic Trials, in the middle of that Indy meet, Dressel considered pulling out. Mentally he was battling it–at war in his own head. His wife, parents, and therapist were all there, all supporting him. So, he pushed on.
After the U.S. Olympic Trials, Dressel considered pulling out again. He wondered if it would be better to give other, up and coming swimmers a shot at the Paris Olympic stage. Dressel battled these thoughts, ruminating over them. At one point, he considered only swimming the Olympic relays. It all made sense in his head. We now know Dressel completed his Olympic schedule, and in this podcast he gives a beat-by-beat account of what he experienced. It’s real, raw, and courageously vulnerable.
Dressel also covers that he was misquoted or taken out of context in the recent AP Report that said he’d compete until LA2028. Dressel is considering it, even reaching out to older Olympic gold medalists for advice. He unpacks this with a lot of detail.
Dressel has not done the full Olympic debrief with Coach Anthony Nesty yet. That will happen in the next few weeks, and that will be the start of what his competitive swimming future looks like, or if there will be a competitive future.
Dressel would love to be in Rowdy Gains’ NBC chair. A swim nerd at heart, Dressel would love to be a swimming analyst.
Dressel wants to provide no cost content to kids. He’s a little uncomfortable with the traditional clinic business. He would like provide no cost eduction to swimmers to gain real insight into what it takes to swim fast.
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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.
The brain is the most complex organ in the body. It’s not all ‘mental health’ but actually ‘physiologic health’.
Nobody would tell someone having a heart attack to ‘be more positive’ or ‘suck it up.’
Keep up your treatment Caleb and rest assured that you honesty will help others!
Absolutely amazing interview. Caeleb is just such an open, honest and amazing man. His open vulnerability is something you never get from any top athletes now. We are so lucky to have him in this sport
Listened to this earlier, great episode. Although i think Mel fake-newsed Dressel which shifted the conversation slightly, when asked about NBC lingering the camera on him too long I think Dressel inferred that the issue was that he shouldn’t have been crying which made him go on the defensive a bit, rather than the actual point regarding the length of time the camera was on him. But other than that it was great to hear from him and that bit about him almost giving it all up after the 50 free semi at Trials was really interesting, a real sliding doors moment for us and his career.
…need to listen again, If so, that was’t my intension, re: NBC keeping the cam on him for so long. I think the interesting part is that Dressel did the public-facing OG steps (racing to media to warm down) then once he was in a private setting, he had the emotional release. And, of course, the context around why he had the release was meaningful.
Man, Caeleb is such a great guy. Always great to hear him talk. I hope he realizes the love he gets isn’t just from his swimming, but also because of his incredible character. Also, Caeleb replacing Rowdy would be awesome to see.
…regarding Rowdy/NBC and Dressel doing the analyst work, I immediately thought back to previous interviews when Dressel would pull out the endless notebooks full of data. He’s a data-guy. And his old series “Dressel Dissects” was great content. Loved it!
This makes us love you even more because we see you are human! And it’s beyond obvious that you love swimming and how you feel when you do it!
All we want is for you to do what makes you happy. We all get it because we all have issues.
How can you dislike this guy?
He’s a total class act.
I’ll always love you papa Dressel 😘