World Record holder Caeleb Dressel is spending the week training up in Charlottesville, Virginia with the University of Virginia and their pro group.
Dressel spent his collegiate career at Florida and trained in Gainesville until he changed training bases last fall in October. He reunited with Steve Jungbluth, who was one of the coaches at Florida before joining Sporting Jax Aquatic Club out of Jacksonville, Florida.
“Caeleb‘s Coach, Steve and I have known each other since Ryan Held and Caeleb made the Rio Olympic team together,” said Virginia head coach Todd DeSorbo. “Now that Caeleb is training one-on-one with Steve they thought it would be a good opportunity to get out and just have a group of train with for a little bit. So Caeleb is just here hanging out doing some different things and being around a group setting. He’s good friends with the Walsh’s and KD and he’s just been training alongside Gretchen trying to pick up new tips and seeing what he can learn and enjoy himself a bit.”
Virginia is not the first stop for Dressel since his coaching change as Dressel has also spent time in California with Aquatic Sports Performance (ASP) and is receiving strength support from Sean Kao of ASP.
Back in December, Dressel mentioned how he hoped to take a trip up to Charlottesville sometime soon, although nothing was planned at the time.
While at Virginia, Dressel, the men’s 100 butterfly World Record holder, is able to train alongside the women’s 100 butterfly World Record holder Gretchen Walsh as Dressel’s best time is a 49.45 and Walsh lowered her own World Record with a 54.33 earlier this month at the Fort Lauderdale Open. Dressel was also at the Fort Lauderdale Open and swam to a 51.26 100 fly, his fastest 100 fly since the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In addition to Gretchen Walsh, Dressel is also able to train with fellow sprint freestyler Kate Douglass. Gretchen Walsh and Douglass both hold the American Record in the LCM 50 free while Dressel holds the men’s 50 free.
On the men’s side, Dressel has a chance to train with Thomas Heilman who represented the US in the men’s 100 fly at the 2025 World Championships.
Seems as though he should have been with Todd from the time he graduated from UF. The world’s greatest sprinter should be with the world’s greatest sprint coach. What took so long?
Maybe CD will finally give the 100 breaststroke a shot.
Dressel swam 50.03 at a SEC championships
which may have been an NCAA record at the time?
I don’t know. The 100m fly and 50m free are stacked, the 100m breast, much less so. He has two years to get it together.
Yeah, but you should have seen the pullouts. There was less breaststroke going on than normal.
He’s easily the worst breaststroker to go under like 53 and he went a 50.0
Starts and UWs were nuts.
Dressel’s butterfly << walsh butterfly
I think Dressel’s WR will hold up until 2027 worlds or possibly LA
Greater distance from Gainesville should be everyone’s goal
Unless you’re in the distance crew but yeah
So cool he wants to learn from GW. A powerful partnership!
I guess you gotta try something. Uphill battle
What the hell sure