Matthias Schrader / AP
Caeleb Dressel of america celebrates successful the lads’s 100-meter freestyle last on the 2020 Summer time Olympics, Thursday, July 29, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.
Sunday, Aug. 1, 2021 | 7:22 a.m.
TOKYO — There was no pleasure within the course of for Caeleb Dressel.
Sleepless nights. Hardly any urge for food. A digital cocoon of an Olympics, lower off from his spouse, household and buddies again in Florida.
But, in the long run, it was completely price it.
Arriving in Tokyo as one of many video games’ most-hyped athletes, Dressel met the second with one scintillating efficiency after one other.
By the point he was achieved Sunday, the 24-year-old had piled up 5 gold medals — one for each race he had an opportunity in — to say his place on swimming’s Mount Rushmore.
Solely 4 different swimmers had captured 5 golds at a single Olympics: Michael Phelps (who did it 3 times), Mark Spitz, Kirstin Otto and Matt Biondi.
Now it is 5.
Dressel capped his Video games with a dominant victory within the 50-meter freestyle and a stunning butterfly leg on the U.S. crew that broke a 12-year-old world report to seize gold within the 4×100 medley relay.
Dressel reveled within the triumph, however he additionally revealed the grim toll it took on him.
“I’m actually glad to be achieved,” he mentioned. “It’s not a straightforward week in any respect. I suppose some elements have been extraordinarily pleasant. I might say nearly all of them weren’t.”
Dressel gave little trace of the anguish behind the scenes.
When it is time to race, his look is at all times one in all steely dedication, a cold-blooded need to the touch the wall first irrespective of how unhealthy it hurts.
He undoubtedly psyches out some opponents earlier than he ever dives within the pool, an imposing determine with a large sleeve of a tattoo that begins atop his left shoulder and winds all the best way right down to the wrist, mainly enveloping his whole arm.
There are pictures of an American flag, orange blossoms, oranges, magnolias, a bald eagle, a bear, an alligator — primarily, a tribute in ink to his dwelling state.
“I’m actually good at hiding my feelings,” Dressel mentioned. “I can put a fairly good present on earlier than every race, however as soon as I shut it off, it simply floods out.”
Certainly, there’s a delicate facet that few ever see. Dressel handed what little free time he had by journaling about his Tokyo experiences. The tears flowed freely when nobody was trying.
The grind of swimming six occasions in a bit of over per week, to not point out the stress of dwelling as much as all that was anticipated of him, pushed Dressel to his breaking level.
“You’ll be able to’t sleep proper, you’ll be able to’t nap, you are shaking on a regular basis, you don’t eat,” he mentioned. “I’ve in all probability misplaced 10 kilos.”
Nobody may have envisioned what Dressel was going by once they noticed the best way he dominated within the pool.
His sensible method off the dive, a porpoise-like wiggling that was solely seen to cameras beneath the floor, ensured he had the lead as quickly as his head popped out of the water.
The one particular person race that was ever doubtful was the 100 freestyle, which Dressel led all the best way however needed to work exhausting to carry off defending Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers by six-hundreds of a second.
Within the 100 butterfly, Dressel broke his personal world report and held off Hungarian star Kristof Milak, winner of the 200 fly, by a comparatively snug 0.23 seconds.
The 50 free was in regards to the greatest rout possible in a race that’s merely a livid, breath-free dash from one finish of the pool to the opposite. Normally determined by just a few hundredths of a second, Dressel completed a few half-body size forward of France’s Florent Manaudou.
The margin of victory — 0.48 seconds — was the biggest in Olympic historical past for both the lads’s or ladies’s 50 free. Demonstrating what a blowout that was for such a brief race, the hole between the opposite seven swimmers within the race was simply 0.24.
His last race confirmed related dominance. Swimming the butterfly on the third leg, Dressel took over with the People trailing each Britain and Italy. He rapidly surged to the lead with a time greater than a second sooner than anybody else, giving Zach Apple some respiration room to shut issues out on the freestyle leg.
U.S. males’s coach Dave Durden mentioned Dressel’s nail-biting victory within the 100 free — the primary particular person gold of his profession — “simply freed him as much as swim the best way that we all know he can swim.”
“It’s exhausting,” Durden mentioned, “after which when you do it, it’s identical to a deep exhale after which he can go after it.”
The one gold Dressel did not win got here in a race he by no means had an opportunity in.
The People went with a special lineup than everybody else within the 4×100 combined medley relay, a brand new Olympic occasion that options two males and two ladies swimming in any order.
Whereas each different finalist used a lady on the anchor freestyle leg, the U.S. coaches went with Dressel. They knew he’d be behind on the last changeover, however by no means anticipated him to dive in additional that 8 seconds off the lead.
That was far an excessive amount of for even a swimmer of Dressel’s skills, although he did go three swimmers to drag the People from final to fifth.
Not like Phelps, who was by no means afraid of the highlight and at all times fast to money in on his huge Olympic accomplishments, Dressel simply wished to get again to the Sunshine State as quickly as attainable.
He did not have a lot contact together with his spouse or anybody else throughout an Olympics that was delayed a yr by the coronavirus pandemic. It was extraordinarily draining simply to Facetime or discuss on the cellphone. He had no power to offer past the pool.
“It’s not essentially the most pleasant course of, however it’s price it. Each a part of it’s price it,” he mentioned. “Simply because it’s unhealthy doesn’t imply it’s not price it.”
Paul Newberry is an Atlanta-based nationwide author and sports activities columnist overlaying his 14th Olympics. AP Sports activities Author Beth Harris contributed to this report.
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