Caeleb Dressel broke two short-course world records, plus lowered another American record, in one afternoon in Budapest on Saturday.
Dressel, competing in the International Swimming League final, crushed the 100m butterfly world record, lowered his own 50m freestyle world record and got under his 100m freestyle American record leading off a relay.
The ISL is contested in a short-course, 25-meter pool. The biggest meets, such as the Olympics, world championships and national championships, are held in 50-meter pools.
Still, what he did on Saturday was mighty impressive.
Dressel, who broke Michael Phelps’ 100m butterfly world record at the 2019 World Championships, shattered the short-course record in the 100m fly by three tenths of a second, clocking 47.78 (video here). South African Chad le Clos held the previous world record.
About 40 minutes later, Dressel took .08 off his short-course record in the 50m free, clocking 20.16 (video here).
Soon after that, Dressel led off the 4x100m free relay for the Cali Condors team in 45.18 seconds, clipping his previous mark from earlier this week by .02. He is .14 off Frenchman Amaury Leveaux‘s world short-course record set in the now-banned high-tech suit era in 2008.
Dressel could make the Olympic team next summer in seven events when including relays, including the new mixed-gender medley relay, with gold-medal possibilities in all of them. He earned seven golds at the 2017 Worlds and six golds and two silvers at the 2019 Worlds.
Dressel and the other top Americans are expected to return to competition in Olympic-size pools in early 2021, leading up to the Olympic Trials in Omaha in June.
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