Caeleb Dressel recently spoke with Nitro Swim Club during his visit to Austin, Texas. He ended his discuss with a Q&A, where he was asked what the most memorable race of his career was. For someone who has won at every stage and boasts numerous Olympic, World, and NCAA titles, Dressel gave a surprising answer.
The 21x World Champion conjured a story from when he was 12-years-old and swam the 200 IM at a Zone meet. This race stood out in Dressel’s mind because it was the first time he can remember bein nervous before a race but then executing it to the best of his ability. Unsurprisingly, he won the race.
Just happy the guy got to win a Gold at the Olympics with his family present. Felt bad for him in 2021 winning and not being able to celebrate with his family there. The Snoop Dogg thing with his wife and kid was awesome.
49.28 100IM for sure. Most dominant WR by a significant margin
17.63 a close second, although… we’ll see what Crooks has to say about that!
The 17.8 leading off Florida’s 200 FRR, first sub-18, the crowd reaction. And then 17.63 later in the meet. Those are 1(a) and 1(b) for me.
What I find most fascinating about this thread is that almost everyone’s response is a yards swim.
I don’t think that is explicitly saying everyone prefers SCY to LCM, but is probably a way that people connect differently with yards and NCAA swimming.
Possibly a product of worlds being “lesser” than the Olympics, and then sadly Tokyo being such a muted venue due to covid, he has incredible LCM swims that over overlooked. And the appeal of college SCY atmosphere that can’t be duplicated.
Yeah, interesting confluence of a bunch of things.
probably also because Dressels underwaters were so much better than everyone else, his yards swims were better than his LCM swims, if we look at times and performances.
It’s not just A yards swim. It’s THE yards swim.
It’s not that everybody loves yards so much, it’s that it was such an impressive swim. It happened to be in yards.
And you wonder why he is struggling to come back to the pool. You are all answering for him which swim is his most memorable. And even telling him he is wrong when he tells you his true answer.
Let him have his own thoughts and experiences.
Why can’t readers have their own thoughts and experiences, too?
He’s struggling to come back to the pool because he’s 28 (almost 29 by the time the Singapore WC happen) and almost completely washed.
17.63 or his 100 fly duel against Milak in 2021 for me
17.63 is obviously the answer. The entirety of 2018 NCAAs was very very memorable for the swim world. But his 49.50 from semis in 2019 is one of my favorites, and the Tokyo 100 free was of course a big one.
His ISL performances in 2020 also shook the swim world. They are somewhat forgotten now compared to the ones I already mentioned, but if you go back and look at comment sections, people were worshipping Caeleb. And I think his 49.28 100 IM could stay the longest of any of his records.
His 2028 olympic qualification will be it
17.6 from a fans POV but he would probably say his 100 free win Tokyo