Why Team USA’s first gold medal of 2024 Olympics was a full-circle one for Caeleb Dressel

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PARIS — A Caeleb Dressel-anchored American relay roared to Team USA’s first gold medal of the 2024 Olympics with dominant swims, flexed muscles, tears and a full-circle moment.

Full-circle because this is where Dressel’s Olympic journey began in 2016, as a youngster on a star-studded 4×100-meter freestyle relay.

And because, eight years and eight gold medals later, when he stepped up to a podium here at Paris La Défense Arena on Saturday, he looked to his right and saw three youngsters, each in their first Olympic final, each with emotion welling in their soul.

“It takes me right back to my first gold,” Dressel, now 27, said.

He looked and saw a pair of 21-year-olds, Jack Alexy and Chris Guiliano, who’d given the U.S. a commanding lead at the midway point of the 4×100. Then there was Hunter Armstrong, who smashed the relay’s third leg in 46.75 seconds.

Armstrong extended the lead, and left Dressel with little to do over the final 100. “They made my job easy,” he said. They finished in 3:09.28, outpacing Australia (3:10.35) and Italy (3:10.70). And as the veteran of the group splashed toward the wall, the three bare-chested kids clenched their fists and erupted in delight.

Later on, they clasped each other’s hands, and summited the podium, and saluted the hundreds, perhaps thousands of American fans who’d stuck around for their medal ceremony.

And that’s when Dressel broke into an irresistible grin, like a proud dad — which he is, in both the literal and metaphorical senses.

He is not the dominant individual force he once was. After a rocky three years since his five-gold-medal splurge in Tokyo, he did not qualify to swim the 100 freestyle individually at these Olympics. But when Alexy and Guiliano beat him out at trials — well, “I didn’t want to lose,” Dressel said, “but it made me happy.”

“I want to be dominant as long as I can,” he clarified. “But there’s a little bit of a shift. … It’s different.” He likened his mentality to that of Nathan Adrian, his relay teammate for his first two golds in 2016, one of the many U.S. Olympic swimming legends who helped others follow similar paths.

“It’s just showing that younger generation what we’re capable of,” Dressel said. It’s the passing of the torch that keeps USA swimming so successful internationally. It’s tradition, and it’s one of the reasons Dressel adores these relays.

“Relays are a little more special,” he said. “It really doesn’t get old.”

So he was “extremely proud” of the kiddos, all of whom have outgrown him. At 6-foot-3, he looked dwarfed next to the 6-foot-6 Armstrong and 6-foot-7 Alexy. And when they finished their podium salute, Dressel turned toward them, and smiled and clapped his hands as they received their medals. He grabbed Armstrong by the shoulder and shook him. He almost had to be reminded by the IOC member performing the ceremony that, you know, he would get a medal too.

After he received it, though, he went in for a bear hug with Alexy.

“U-S-A!” chants rang around the arena. Dressel pumped his fists and led them, as Armstrong fought back tears.

“I will give my entire body and soul up for these boys,” Armstrong said later.

But first, the anthem. He sang every word as a U.S. flag rose into the air.

And Dressel? He sang a bit. But mostly, giddily, he just beamed.