Caeleb Dressel Confident About Career ‘Longevity’ With New Outlook on Swimming

Star American swimmer Caeleb Dressel spoke to the media for the first time in more than a year on Saturday and shared some of the lessons he learned during his eight months away from the sport following his unexplained exit from the 2022 World Championships.

The seven-time Olympic gold medalist seemed like he had a weight lifted off his shoulders at this week’s U.S. National Championships, beaming with optimism despite failing to qualify for the World Championships later this month. After only resuming a full eight-practice-a-week schedule in May, Dressel placed 29th in the 100 freestyle prelims (49.42), third in the 50 butterfly final (23.35), fifth in the 100 fly final (51.66), and 22nd in the 50 free prelims (22.72).

“I’m doing good right now,” Dressel said. “Very indifferent about my results, kind of being pulled both ways. A little embarrassed, like, what just happened? But then also fully understanding of what just happened and the year I’ve had. So I get it.

“I’ve always loved the sport and how fair it is,” he continued. “I’m proud of myself and the results, believe it or not. I know it’s shocking. I’m not used to the C-finals, lane one, lane eight. This is definitely something different. I wouldn’t have changed anything about this year, wouldn’t have changed anything about this swim meet. I’m just excited for actually starting a season on time and getting back to work.”

It was an unfamiliar position for the 26-year-old world record holder, but Dressel said he “really was okay being in the C-final and had a smile on my face actually racing.”

“There’s a difference between racing scared because you don’t want to embarrass yourself and actually enjoying racing, and I haven’t had that enjoyment in quite some time,” he said.

Dressel didn’t share details on the undisclosed health issue that forced him out of last year’s World Championships, but he said his “body kept score” over the years.

“There’s a lot of things I shoved down, and it all came boiling up,” he said. “So I didn’t really have a choice. I used to pride myself on being able to shove things down, push it aside, plow through it. It worked for a very long time in my career: I got results from ’17, ’19, ’21,  until I couldn’t do that anymore. So it was a very strange feeling — I’m usually really good at that. So I don’t really do that anymore.”

During his eight months out of the water, Dressel developed a new mental approach to the sport that he says will give him more longevity “in my career and as a person.” The switch flipped for him to return to swimming when he started missing every aspect of the sport — even chlorine and dry skin. He wanted to return for himself, not to fulfill any obligation as the premier American male swimmer in the post-Michael Phelps era.

“The moment I really realized, I don’t know what month it was, but I really like to mow,” Dressel said. “I got a sweet zero-turn mower. It just popped into my head, like if I never come back to swimming, I’m going to be okay. And that’s how I knew I was somewhat ready to come back. So that was huge for me. That was really, really big for me.

“I needed every day that I got, needed every minute I got,” he added. “I missed it, almost every day. I missed the little things in the sport — blowing bubbles, my toes on the grip tape, chlorine, believe it or not — I hate chlorine — I missed the chlorine, I missed the dry skin, I missed every part of it. And that’s how I knew I was ready to get back: because I didn’t need to, I wanted to.”

Dressel has always been a perfectionist, the darker side of which he gave us a glimpse of last year when he took us inside his hyper-critical logbook leading up to the 2021 Olympic Trials. Now that he’s able to enjoy life more without worrying so much about swimming, he appears much more sure about his path in the sport.

“I think the number one thing that I’m really, really good at now is I can actually sit on my front porch with Meghan and be okay with it, and not think of a million things I could be doing or what I did wrong in practice or why I thought I did bad in Tokyo or why I thought 2019 was terrible,” Dressel said. “I can just sit still, which is hard for me to do anyways because I’m hyper. If I didn’t swim, I’d probably be on so many medicines to calm me down. I got really good with being okay sitting still, sitting with myself, and not worrying about swimming — not even worrying but not even thinking about swimming. There were other priorities that I realized are a lot bigger than swimming. Like I said, I still missed it everyday. But that was one of the things I’m probably most proud of, I know it sounds lame, being able to sit on my front porch with a coffee, read a book, put my feet up, and not worry about anything. I didn’t have practice coming up, but I was good at just having nothing on the agenda. It wasn’t lazy, I think it was exactly what I needed to be doing.

“I’m not worried about the physical part at all,” he added. “I know (Florida coach Anthony) Nesty can take care of that, my teammates can help me take care of that. But like I said, if I can take that mental side that I approach the sport with and have that in Lucas Oil Stadium (for the 2024 Olympic Trials), I’ll be fine.”