2023 Atlanta Classic
- Friday, May 12 – Sunday, May 14, 2023
- McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, Georgia
- LCM (50 meters)
- Meet Central
The long-awaited return of superstar Caeleb Dressel appears to be imminent.
The seven-time Olympic gold medalist and 15-time LC world champion is reportedly set to return to the competition pool in less than two weeks at the 2023 Atlanta Classic, a source close to the meet told SwimSwam.
Dressel, 26, hasn’t raced in a competitive setting since abruptly dropping out of the 2022 World Championships midway through the competition.
His withdrawal from Budapest, which was due to medical reasons, came on June 22, and with racing set to begin on May 12 in Atlanta, Dressel will have gone nearly 11 months between meets when he finally takes to the blocks at the McAuley Aquatic Center.
Dressel’s expected return aligns with recent reports that indicate he’s been back in full-time training for at least the last few months, and he was among the U.S. National Team members seen at USA Swimming’s relay camp held in Austin this past weekend.
Dressel is no stranger to the Atlanta Classic—he’s raced the meet in 2018, 2019, and 2021, and has produced a number of fast in-season performances there.
In 2019, prior to his six gold, eight medal haul at the World Championships in Gwangju, Dressel put up notable times of 47.86 in the 100 free and 1:56.29 in the 200 fly, and prior to winning five Olympic gold medals in Tokyo, he put up times of 21.82 in the 50 free, 48.00 in the 100 free, 1:47.43 in the 200 free and 51.15 in the 100 fly in Atlanta.
Monday, May 1 marks the entry deadline, so expect official psych sheets to drop in the coming days.
In previous years, the Atlanta Classic has coincided with a Pro Swim Series event, but that won’t be the case this year. The final leg of the 2023 PSS will come the following weekend, May 17-20, with the U.S. National Championships (World Championship qualifier) scheduled for five and a half weeks later (June 27-July 1).
Dressel is the defending world champion in the men’s 50 butterfly, and will be seeking to reclaim his titles in the 50 free, 100 free and 100 fly.
If he is coming back he wants it more than ever and he will be dangerous. I’m talking 2019 type dominance but escalated. Popovici and Milak are doing really well but they are no match for Dressel if he is in prime shape for Worlds. We don’t know how he has been training and I’m not expecting much from this meet but it’s not like he took a break for 10 years, I think he could potentially be back in time to blow up at Worlds.
Didn’t see a psych sheet but swim Atlanta website confirmed KL, Finke, and Summer will also be attending.
Can’t wait! Do you know if there’ll be streaming anywhere? On the US Swimming YouTube channel possibly?
There’s a place for streaming links so I guess so!
https://www.swimatlanta.com/news#154
Anthony Ervin came back. So can Caeleb.
Popovicitis-free
Kinda sad to read all these ridiculous predictions. You can’t expect him to be at the level he used to be and that’s totally fine. It’s these types of comments and predictions that puts so much pressure on people like Dressel. I’m just happy that he may have found his love for the sport again. I hope he can just have fun at the meet and i don’t really care what times he swims.
It’s not like anyone is forcing him to read the comments.
Not expecting much this meet but now he is back in the mix I don’t see how he doesn’t make the worlds team in at least the 50 free, 50 fly and 4×1 free relay pool. I won’t make any time predictions until he has has a couple of meets under his belt
Return of the king
I’ll throw my crazy conspiracy theory into the ring.
Dressel withdrew from Worlds last year due to an emergency meeting with the USAS bigwigs who noted our comparative lack of depth in the non-sprint events, and has spent the last 11 months secretly training for his Dressel 2.0 career.
He’ll use the AC to unveil his new event lineup: 1500, 400 IM, 200 fly, and 200 breast. Unnamed sources say he’s a genuine medal threat in all four at Worlds, and is a record threat in all four for Paris with another year of training for these events under his belt.