If the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics were the Mental Health Olympics, the Paris Games starting this week are merely a sequel. Simone Biles, the incomparable, iconic gymnast whose brain couldn’t force her body to follow its normal routine in Tokyo, is back to try again. Noah Lyles, one of the fastest sprinters in the world, broken down and devastated by everything he’d overcome mentally after winning bronze in the 200 meters in Tokyo, is back in search of more medals. The searing spotlight returns once every four years, and athletes are stepping into it with a now-understandable mix of excitement and anxiety.
Enter Dressel. He competed in five events in Tokyo, winning gold medals in all of them. But when the U.S. Trials began last month, there was no guarantee he'd make the team. After eight months away from competition, he wasn't sure he'd be able to return to swimming.
“I definitely thought about whether or not I would come back,” Dressel said on a Zoom call from the USA Swimming Team's training camp in Croatia this month. “There were many months where I wasn't sure what I was going to do. It wasn't a question I asked myself, because I hadn't really thought about it.”
That makes his chances of a third Olympiad, and even a medal, all the more remote. Swimming is not a sport like, say, basketball, where a player can take months or years off and be relatively confident that his jump shot will come back. In swimming, other swimmers are working hard during those months you miss practice. You can't just catch up.
Dressel didn't go into the specifics of her mental health struggles, but she acknowledged that she is a different person and athlete than she was at the Tokyo Games. After winning the 50-meter freestyle at the Indianapolis Trials last month, qualifying in two individual events and qualifying for two relays, Dressel spoke eloquently and fondly of a time when, as a 10-year-old, it was just her, the water, her friends and no other stress.
The 27-year-old is trying his hand at everything.
“I feel like I have a better relationship with myself and with the water,” Dressel said, “but the water has never been an issue. It's the strain that comes with it. So there are things I'm still working on, things I need to work on and things I've improved a lot on. I'm still working on it. There are parts of the sport that I really love. I love the water. It's one of the favorite relationships I have. I'm always having fun in the water. But there are things that I don't like about the sport, I don't like.”
“So I'm really digging into the parts of the sport that I love and working past the parts of the sport that I don't particularly like.”
Dressel is an Olympian and this is an Olympic year, so he will be scrutinized as someone who has publicly dealt with mental health issues. But swimming aside, he said he's human and just needed to deal with the things that tormented and exhausted him. He's husband to Megan and father to young son August. The son of a veterinarian, he finds comfort in his 9-year-old cat Remus and 6-year-old English Labrador Jane.
He goes to therapy and talks regularly with his team, making it a priority to spot “red flags” that could be causing him problems. He finds joy in training; even on days when he's not swimming as fast as he'd like, and wrestles with the idea that he'll never beat his personal best, something about the sport makes him actively happy again.
Back in the pool. On the platform. One of the most decorated Olympians of the Games. And… scared. He's learned that pushing it away isn't helpful. He's learned that embracing it is more productive, not to mention more honest. He'll use, as he put it, “the tools in the toolbox” with every climb. And it will almost certainly start with Saturday's 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
“I think just accepting that emotion and knowing that it worked for me, just identifying it and naming it, was a lot more comforting for me,” he said. “But [also] Not abandoning my feelings is what made me great.
“Yeah, every time I step on the block I get scared because I think I might lose, I might embarrass myself, I might let someone down. It's just a thought that comes with it, and I think it's something that's hardwired into my genes and my system.”
It's a reminder even before the Paris Olympics begin. And it's not just Caleb Dressel's problem. The Olympics will bring together more than 10,000 athletes. Even the best of them have their own problems. Talking about them isn't a sign of weakness. It's a path to strength. “The obstacles don't seem so scary,” Dressel said.
