‘My Body is Done’: Caeleb Dressel Opens Up on Tokyo Struggles

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

‘My Body is Done’: Caeleb Dressel Opens Up on Tokyo Struggles

As one of the American stars of the Tokyo Olympics, Caeleb Dressel lived under a microscope. The pressure of expectations – his own high hopes and the external ones lumped upon him –weighed heavily upon the American sprinter.

The five-time gold medalist in Tokyo opened up this week about those struggles in an interview with In Depth with Graham Bensinger.

Bensinger spent two days in Gainesville, Fla., with Dressel, his family and coach Gregg Troy. Dressel shared excerpts from the training journal he kept in the leadup to the Games.

Yep. That’s May 6th. Oh, so that’s like a month out from Trials. Yeah, ‘F**k me, f**king terrible. My body is done.’ Oh jeez… I know I’m laughing a little bit, but when you’re writing this, this isn’t as a joke. This is good information. ‘F**k me. F**k my body. F**k swimming.’ Jeez. Yeah there’s a totally different side of the sport that a lot of people don’t see… I try to be as honest with myself as I can in these books ’cause these aren’t for – well until now – these aren’t really for anybody else’s eyes.

Dressel also discussed a bout with panic attacks as a high school senior, as he was growing into the national swimming spotlight. He also detailed how he took to purging his lifestyle of any extra objects – “clothes, coffee mugs, suits, goggles” – to achieve a minimalistic existence in the weeks before Trials.

Dressel has not shied away from being publicly vulnerable in the past. He’s detailed the toll Tokyo took on him. In the interview with Bensinger, he mentioned that he did not hit many of his goal times in Tokyo while simultaneously calling himself out for being unfair on himself. (Dressel set a world record in the men’s 100 fly in Tokyo plus Olympic records in the 50 and 100 free.) With the University of Florida training group, Dressel has set the tone of a certain openness when it comes to mental and emotional difficulties.

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