Why Olympic Gold Medalist Caeleb Dressel Is Ok With Swimming Slowly In-Season

7x Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel lost every race at the Westmont Pro Swim, and he is 100% okay with that. He kind of looked relieved.  Of course, Dressel is an outlier among elite sprinters, doing enough work to pop fast mid-distance swims, something we saw last spring — his 3:44 400 IM and 1:40 200 butterfly unshaven efforts in-season. Right now, I’m guessing Coach Anthony Nesty will start backing off the distance and dialing-in the speed work as we near the next Pro Swim in San Antonio.

Dressel covers a lot of topics in this interview.

Commenting on his tattoo leg sleeve, he said “don’t take my advice” on how quickly to return to the chlorine after getting inked.

Super Bowl commercial, playing drums? Who wouldn’t want to do that? Apparently Caeleb. At first he said no to appearing in the Super Bowl commercial. He explains why in the interview.

Dressel’s dry-side life is integral to his recovery and mental health. He loves living on a farm now, with cows, and he feels a little like a cowboy.

Dressel Predictions? I’m holding off until after his next competition which should be the San Antonio Pro Swim, but that’s not confirmed yet.  I think we need to see Dressel a little less broken-down before we start the prediction process. Feel free to play the prediction game anyway.

Follow Caeleb Dressel on Instagram here. 

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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.

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He Gets It Done Again
2 years ago

If ya swim as fast as he does at the end of the season, you’d be ok with sinking straight to the bottom in-season.

Yup
2 years ago

so you are saying it ISN’T good to be ‘fast every weekend’ but fail at the Olympics?

Tony
2 years ago

Thankfully for every Sun Yang in the world there is a Caeleb Dressel.

steer
Reply to  Tony
2 years ago

what

Swimmerfromjapananduk
Reply to  Tony
2 years ago

What are you smoking

Noah
2 years ago

Are there going to be Trials pickems?

Sprint Fanatic
2 years ago

, are you going to record a long podcast after San Antonio with him, where you can ask him more questions about his Trials and Budapest time goals?

Sprint Fanatic
Reply to  Gold Medal Mel Stewart
2 years ago

Thanks so much.

Yeah if he doesn’t share, maybe ask him indirectly about his thoughts on the 50-100 free WRs in general.

Sub13
2 years ago

I don’t really pay attention to in-season times unless they’re notable. A swimmer going a bit slower in-season is expected.

But in-season times where someone swims faster than they did in Tokyo or sets a PB are very fun to speculate about!

I just want it to be trials already.

The Original Tim
2 years ago

As both a coach and a swimmer, I find it interesting how people react differently to the same training in season.

I coach both age groupers (mostly 11-12) and masters, and I generally hit my masters swimmers with comparatively significantly tougher training in season than I do the kids.

Most of the kids and some of the adults are very even in their performances, they’ll swim similar times no matter whether they’re tapered or in the middle of the season, while some of the kids and most of the adults have significant differences between their in season and tapered times. I’ve got one masters swimmer who will swim within 3% of her times no matter when the meet is… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by The Original Tim
Jason
Reply to  The Original Tim
2 years ago

Good point, it’s so variable. Mack Horton in-season is very, very slow, yet comes good for big races. Although he did miss the top two at trials last year in the 400m, and so did Regan Smith. Yet someone like Cate Campbell was able to produce 52’s, 100m free mid season for almost a decade. Go figure.

B1Guy!
2 years ago

He doesn’t care about “slow” swimming cause he knows it’s a part of the process and trusts his abilities and his coaches

MTK
Reply to  B1Guy!
2 years ago

Exactly. And at this point he’s been one of the elites for like 6 years, and been able to hit 21.low/47.low/49.high whenever it comes time for championship season (other than the 2018 injury), so he has no reason to doubt that it works.

Last edited 2 years ago by MTK
Joel
Reply to  MTK
2 years ago

Mid 2017 is not 6 years ago but ok.

Yurrr
Reply to  Joel
2 years ago

I’d say making the Olympic 100 free final in 2016 would be considered pretty elite. 2016 is 6 years ago

Joel
Reply to  Yurrr
2 years ago

Fair enough. My definition of ‘elite’ may be different to yours.

Dan
Reply to  Joel
2 years ago

In 2016, he came home from the Olympics with 2 gold medals. How is that not elite?

Dudeman
Reply to  Joel
2 years ago

Top 8 at the Olympics isn’t elite? I don’t think anyone has the same definition as you by that metric

About Gold Medal Mel Stewart

Gold Medal Mel Stewart

MEL STEWART Jr., aka Gold Medal Mel, won three Olympic medals at the 1992 Olympic Games. Mel's best event was the 200 butterfly. He is a former World, American, and NCAA Record holder in the 200 butterfly. As a writer/producer and sports columnist, Mel has contributed to Yahoo Sports, Universal Sports, …

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