Caeleb Dressel entered the 2024 Olympics as one of the most decorated American swimmers of all time. Looking to add to his seven gold medals earned in Rio and Tokyo, the 27-year-old came into this year's competition with high hopes.
However, the Paris Games didn't turn out as golden as his other opportunities. Despite winning his eighth gold medal for Team USA in the 4x100m freestyle relay, Dressel's individual races didn't pan out for him as they had in the past.
Friday wasn't his day, as he failed to impress in two of his signature events. It's hard to qualify an Olympics as disappointing when you come out with a medal, but Dressel didn't put up his best performance.
Here's why Dressel isn't defending his Olympic title in Saturday's 100m butterfly final.
2024 PARIS OLYMPICS
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Why isn't Caeleb Dressel swimming 100m butterfly final?
In a surprising turn of events, Dressel didn't qualify for the 100m butterfly final at the Paris Games. He turned in a time of 51.57 seconds in the semifinals, good enough for fifth in his semifinal heat.
The top three swimmers from each of the two semifinal heats qualify for the finals, as well as the two remaining swimmers with the best times. Dressel's time did not put him in the two fastest swimmers outside the automatic qualifiers. Indeed, every swimmer from the second semifinal heat posted a faster time than him.
Dressel finished 13th of 16 among semifinal swimmers, leaving the defending Olympic gold medalist out of the final in the event in which he holds both the world and Olympic records.
"I'd like to be performing better, but I'm not," he said after the semifinal heats. "I trained to go faster than the times I'm going. I know that. So, yeah. It's tough, a little heartbreaking. A little heartbreaking for sure."
MORE: How Dressel overcame 'terrifying part of my life' after 2021 Olympics
Caeleb Dressel 2024 Olympic results
At the 2024 Olympics, Dressel competed in the men's 4x100m freestyle, the men's 50m freestyle and the men's 100m butterfly.
Team USA came home with the gold medal in the men's 4x100 freestyle final, beating out Australia by over a second for the title. Dressel has now won that race in each of his Olympic appearances dating back to 2016 in Rio.
He also made it to the 50m freestyle finals, looking to defend his gold from the 2021 Tokyo Games. Dressel qualified second in Semifinal 1 with a time of 21.58 seconds, but he only finished sixth when it mattered. He came in more than 0.3 seconds behind Australian Cameron McEvoy, who took home gold.
The biggest surprise came when Dressel was unable to qualify for the men's 100m butterfly final, also failing to defend his 2021 gold medal in the event.
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Caeleb Dressel medals
Dressel has won eight medals over the course of three Games, all of them gold. Here are the events he's won and their respective Olympics.
2016 Rio
- Gold, 4x100m freestyle
- Gold, 4x100m medley
2021 Tokyo
- Gold, 50m freestyle
- Gold, 100m freestyle
- Gold, 100m butterfly
- Gold, 4x100m freestyle
- Gold, 4x100m medley
2024 Paris
- Gold, 4x100m freestyle
