How Caeleb Dressel Regained His Confidence and Returned to Superior Sprinting Ways
Swimming saw very little of Caeleb Dressel in the two years after the Paris Olympics. Dressel had returned from an extended break to capture three relay medals, two gold and one silver, although he struggled in his individual events. He competed sparingly in 2025, and only in 50-meter races, skipping the selection meet for the World Championships as he and wife Meghan prepared to welcome their second child.
Late in the year, though, Dressel began assembling the pieces for a totally new training program. Dressel reached out to Steve Jungbluth, previously his sprint coach at the University of Florida and now coaching at Sporting Jax Aquatic Club. He brought in Sean Kao of Aquatic Sports Performance to put together his strength training program and Eva Piatrikova as a physiologist. Under this new system, Dressel would be doing less practices than ever before, with just four swims and two lifts per week.
“My non-negotiables were I don’t want to be doubling,” Dressel said. “I want to be home with my family.”
Dressel called this his “freshman year” giving the novelty of his program, and had no idea how it would click entering the Toyota National Championships in late July. Some but not all of the top American swimmers would be attendance; the team for the Pan Pacific Championships two weeks later was long since finalized, and no national team qualification was on the line.
“I think what the loose goal was for myself — I didn’t even tell Steve this — it was just, ‘Let’s try to be faster than Paris,’” Dressel said. “I feel like that was a pretty fair goal. That was the most recent big swim meet that I had. That’s just kind of what popped into my head.”
Caeleb Dressel — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
His midseason performances had been nothing special, but over the course of those five days, Dressel re-established himself as a force in the sprint events. He opened the meet with an upset win in the 100 freestyle, overtaking Brooks Curry and holding off Patrick Sammon to finish in 47.70. The sign of the “1” next to his name prompted Dressel to raise his arms, sit on the lane line and scream in celebration.
He followed that up with second-place swims in the 50 and 100 butterfly, coming in just behind Olympic medalist (and soon-to-be American) Ilya Kharun on both occasions. The 50.45 in the 100 fly made Dressel the eighth-fastest swimmer in the world for 2026. He saved perhaps the best for last, winning the 50 free in 21.35. That time would hold up through Pan Pacs to make Dressel the fastest American in 2026 and tied for fourth in the world rankings.
More than anything, Dressel wanted to regain his confidence, and that happened right away when he swam his first sub-48 100 free in more than two years in the event’s prelims. “Honestly, I could I probably could have gone home after that,” he said. Over the course of the meet, Dressel admitted, “the expectations get rolling. One good swim, and you’re like, ‘Oh nice! Now I want to be this.’” He listed off his desires to be a tenth or two faster in his 50s, but hitting his fastest times had never been the goal.
“I got myself out of it, and I really was enjoying the swim meet,” he said. “It just felt good to be behind the blocks, knowing that I belonged there. I wasn’t scared. I was genuinely excited to swim. It’s not going to be like that at every swim meet. It was just Nationals. I know this wasn’t the most pressure-ridden swim meet. But for me, this was a big step.”
Jungbluth, who first coached Dressel more than 12 years ago, saw the transformation happen throughout the meet. “For me, at Nationals, it didn’t matter what the times were. It was, can he race in the A finals for the win? That was it, and he did. You could just see the confidence in his face coming back more and more every day,” he said. “It was like watching Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk, but it took five days to do it.”
The coach recalled one specific moment on the final night, after Dressel’s 50 free and after he finished his immediate post-race commitments. “He comes over to me finally and gives me a hug. He says, “We are (bleeping) doing this.” Just basically telling me in his own way, ‘I believe now.'”
What Swimming Gives Dressel
Six years ago, the COVID pandemic brought Dressel’s run of sprinting dominance to a grinding halt, delaying his highly-anticipated star showing at the Tokyo Olympics by one year. During the months that spring when the world essentially shut down, Dressel surprised himself when he realized what swimming had provided him for so many years and what he was missing.
“I didn’t know how much I relied on having the parts of the sport that I hate,” Dressel said. “At least once a year, I need the adrenaline dump, I need the nerves, I need the being scared. When we were in lockdown, I was going skydiving and all this different stuff. My body was craving the parts that I thought I hated. I think that actually keeps me at homeostasis.”
That same nervous energy behind dozens of international gold medals has driven Dressel to challenges and tasks that genuinely scare him. He recalled a recent trip to Volcano Bay, a water park at Universal Orlando resort, when he saw a massive structure of tubes that later learned was the tallest water slide in North America. “My first thought is, ‘No, I don’t want to do it,’ because I hate the feeling of my stomach dropping,” Dressel said. “It’s probably the only thing in the world that I really hate. You see someone go down, and I was like, ‘Dang it. Now that means I have to go do it.’”
For swimming success, Dressel said, he needs “both sides of the coin, feeling very confident in the sport and having that little bit of fear.” His swims at Nationals revitalized the first part, but that fear never vanished, even during the period after Paris when Dressel was training and racing minimally.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
“The sport’s just too much fun. Racing’s too much fun. The excitement’s too much fun. Being scared is even (fun),” Dressel said. “I feel like that’s the easiest sign of whether or not you should do something. If you’re scared to do it, it means you should probably go do it because you’re going to learn a lot about yourself when you come out the other side. If you’re indifferent about something, that means you truly just don’t care and you probably shouldn’t do it.”
Now, having just turned 30, Dressel acknowledged, “for the first time in my career, maybe 5%, I’m starting to believe that I have done some pretty special things in this sport.” With little to prove to himself, let alone anyone else, Dressel has learned to view his journey in swimming as a metaphor for life, giving him the chances to improve more than just his times.
“I’m a better person with swimming, and I have no problem saying that. It offers me challenges and obstacles, and I can prove myself to be a better dad, husband, brother. In all walks of life, swimming offers me the obstacles that I need to know myself better, and I feel like the biggest thing is to show that to my kids,” Dressel said.
“I’ve gotten to know myself so well, and for my kids I don’t need to swim fast to prove that. It’s just showing up I the face of adversity and obstacles and challenges and not being afraid to attack those. And swimming is the easiest way for me to do that. Every single practice, there’s a challenge, there’s something to overcome. There’s a way to get to know yourself better. And you get to fail. You get to fail a whole lot. Whether it’s a certain stroke, a flip turn, an underwater, a race. A week of swimming, you get to fail a whole bunch, and you get to figure out how to not have that happen, and then inevitably, of course, it’s going to happen again. That’s the beauty of the sport.”
Plotting His International Return
Dressel will compete next at USA Swimming’s selection meet for the Short Course World Championships, set to take place in Westmont, Ill., October 28-31. At that meet, he will expand his program from its freestyle and butterfly roots and contest the 100 IM, the lone short course meters event in which he still holds the world record. If he qualifies, Dressel would return to international competition with the United States at the Short Course World Championships in Beijing.
If and when he does return to the U.S. national team , Dressel wants to take on a mentorship role, helping younger swimmers the way older teammates guided him at previous international meets, beginning with his Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago. Dressel recalled having Nathan Adrian and Matt Grevers in that role in his early days on the team, and he would join them for games of Mario Tennis. He leaned on fellow Florida Gators Elizabeth Beisel and Natalie Hinds for advice in big moments.
“When I’m on teams, I hope anybody that’s on a team feels comfortable to knock on my door, shoot me a text, or to call me, to ask advice if they have any questions,” Dressel said. “That’s what I want my role on the team to be, if they’re freaking out the night before, to be able to text or say, ‘Dude, like I’m freaking out.’ Because I feel like I’ve been through every situation, scenario, feeling, emotion within this sport to where I might have a little bit to say. It’s so special when guys do reach out. I’ve had actually a bunch of phone calls and texts, and I feel like I’ve given what little advice I do have. But that’s what I feel like my role is on this team, just someone to lean on.”
Caeleb Dressel in an interview with NBC Sports at U.S. Nationals — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
As for his own competitive pursuits, Dressel plans to focus on all four of his main events for long course competition, although he has broached to his coaches whether this focus on 50 and 100-meter races could detract from each other in this era of specialized training. With his limited practice schedule, he does not envision taking on a massive program of 16 races like he attempted at World Championships in 2017 and 2019; instead, he will have to be more targeted with his strategy, but he plans to prioritize relay swims for the United States.
“Can I do that week based of four days of swimming and lifting twice a week? I don’t think so. I want to be mindful of that,” Dressel said. “If I make four events, it might be dropping (one) or just doing the relay. I wouldn’t want to do individual only and drop a relay. That’s ridiculous. That’s not my style. It would be dropping individuals and figuring out where it works in the meet. There’s some strategy that’s going to come into it.”
Dressel’s 2027 season plans center on the the long course U.S. selection meet next June and the Budapest World Championships a month later, and then he will try to qualify for a fourth Olympic team and compete on home soil at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Dressel already has nine Olympic gold medals, tied for third all-time among Olympians from any sport with Mark Spitz, Katie Ledecky and four others.
Dressel had a chance to become only the second Olympian to win 10 golds when he swam the butterfly leg on the U.S. men’s 400 medley relay in Paris, but the team was unable to maintain the lead Dressel provided. Since then, Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won six gold medals at this year’s Winter Olympics for a career total of 11.
As for his eventual final medal tally, Dressel dismissed it. “I genuinely don’t care,” he said. “I was never in this sport to count medals. That’s never been my priority. I just want to make my 10-year-old self proud. I don’t think the official count is 10 gold medals when I was 10 to be like, ‘Nice, now, he’s done it.’ Who cares? Nobody cares.”
Informed about Klæbo’s accomplishment at the Winter Games, Dressel’s thoughts veered off. “That’s a sick name. He’s got a cooler name than me. Maybe I don’t want to beat him,” he said. “That’s never been the goal in the sport to count medals.”