Dressel says goodbye with an Olympic record in 50 freestyle and a world record in 4x100 styles

"Swimming was more fun when nobody knew me," Caeleb Dressel said this Saturday, disoriented, nervous and stunned by the media noise.

The Games had discovered him restless as a wild animal on the main street.

The epic of this shy young man raised in the forests of Florida ended this Sunday when he broke, in the space of an hour, an Olympic record in 50 freestyle and a world record in the relay of styles, on the way to his fourth and fifth medals in gold in the Tokyo swimming championships.

The American swimmer, the fastest and most splendid in the competition, was accompanied by the fastest and most measured swimmer, Australian Emma McKeon, daughter of Olympic swimmer Ron McKeon and niece of Rob Woodhouse, the only Australian medalist in history in 400 styles, worthy Heir to Dawn Fraser and Jodie Henry, conqueror of her third and fourth Olympic gold in the wild rush that constitutes the last day of racing until the magic coda of the relay finals.

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The style relay finals close the Olympic pool party.

Tradition dictates it.

An atmosphere of transience, of inexorable change, of mysticism, takes hold of the 62 swimmers, women and men, gathered by the water to celebrate the races that close the four-year cycle of the Games.

The sense of community stimulates unknown emotions and what in normal situations the physiologist, the physicist or the biomechanical measures, for a few minutes is immeasurable.

The mystery of the human soul, and some technical changes in the conditions of the starts, explains that phenomena such as Adam Peaty, who won the gold in 100 breaststroke with 57.37s, swim his relay post in 56.46s, for below the world record.

Great Britain, who had two relay golds in Tokyo, started the race badly. Luke Greenbank, responsible for the backstroke, finished the first 100 in seventh and forced Peaty to swim against the current in the breaststroke. Deprived of clean water, moving in the eddies that the Russians and Italians caused in the adjacent streets, the angry Peaty worked the prodigy of swimming his two lengths at least two seconds faster than his competitors. When it hit the wall, Britain was leading. His 56.46s made his breaststroke post the fastest ever recorded. Then the butterflies jumped into the water. And there was Dressel.

Sunk to third place, behind the British and Italians, the US team needed a superman to pull it out of the mess. Dressel, who an hour earlier had claimed gold in the final of 50 freestyle with an Olympic record of 21.07s, fulfilled his role with more than professional rigor. Uninhibited, liberated in his condition of Olympic champion, and inflamed by the climate of collective neurosis that altered everyone, the Florida boy bustled his street like a Moulinex and returned without breathing, lest he lose time by sticking his head out of the water . He did not die by drowning. He established the fastest butterfly post in history, which is equivalent to confirming that a man never swam faster than a 100 meter butterfly.

Dressel did 49.03 seconds.

This is 42 hundredths below his world record of 100 butterflies, achieved on Saturday in 49.45s, and 25 hundredths less than the posse record that Dressel himself set in the 2019 World Cup, when he swam in 49.28s.

Michael Phelps' post on the day the United States team broke the 2009 World Cup record in polyurethane suits was 49.72s.

"This is terrifying"

The feat placed the United States as the leader of the final, one second ahead of Great Britain, as the front crawl swimmers jumped into the water. They call it a mirror effect. Zach Apple, the American bookseller, the man who had sunk in the 4x200 final, didn't just redeem himself. Infested with genius, he swam beyond his means. His personal best at 100 was 47.78s. In the relay he made 46.95s and beat Kyle Chalmers by one hundredth, gold in the free 100 in Rio, silver in Tokyo, and the best placed man in the ranking of the eight crawl specialists in the contest.

The chain of enthusiasm and wonder led to the world record.

The United States won gold in 3m 26.78 seconds, one second faster than the record (3m 27.28s) that Peirsol, Shanteau, Phelps and Walters recorded in stone in 2009. One second faster than Great Britain, which was silver , and three ahead of Italy, which was bronze.

At last, Dressel had concluded his particular odyssey after years of struggle to accustom his withdrawn character to the hubbub of the great championships.

In full celebration of the team, he burst into tears.

His embrace with Ryan Murphy, his confidant and childhood friend, his old schoolmate where they started swimming together, in Jacksonville, was the release of a week of maximum psychic tension for fulfilling the media expectations that he had generated.

They asked him to be the best and he did not disappoint.

"I am proud," he said, before closing the aquatic center.

“Now I pat myself on the back.

I just want to go home, put this behind me and move on. "

The winner of the 100 and 50 freestyle, the 100 butterfly and the 4x100 freestyle and 4x100 relays joined this Sunday the list of Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi and Michael Phelps, the only swimmers who achieved five gold medals in the Olympic Games.

When they reminded him, at the end of the job, Dressel only had to ask to please leave him alone.

"I'm relieved," he acknowledged.

No enthusiasm.

No dreams come true.

"For me, leaving my little stamp on sport is of course special." He said. “But I don't want to take anything from Michael, I don't want to take anything from Mark. Of course I am happy with what I have done. My goal is not to surpass anyone but to be able to fulfill my potential ”.

Dressel made an existential reflection.

What if it failed?

He arrived in Tokyo as a double world champion of 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly, the fastest swimmer in the world by far, but about to turn 25.

Faced with the challenge of becoming the great figure of world swimming or an unfinished and disappointing athlete.

With no other possibility than all or nothing.

He confessed that the dilemma seemed insane to him.

“There is so much pressure in a moment,” he said, “that your whole life is cooked in a moment, 20 seconds, 40 seconds.

It's not crazy?.

I wouldn't have said this during the competition but if I look back it's terrifying. "

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