Caleb Dressel 17.63 50y free!

Apologies for bumping my own post, but this is by far the biggest sports news of the day. Kind of like someone running a 9.28 100m.

I imagine 50 yd free doesn't get swum much outside of US college racing? But that does seem pretty epic, looks like Cielo is the next fastest on the all time list, with an incredibly distant 18.47 ... Any idea what shape that would translate to for 50m long course?

The conversion calculator on https://swimswam.com (the rough swimming equivalent to letsrun) gives 20.36. Cielo's WR (in a tech suit in 2009) is 20.91.

dkny64 wrote:

Kind of like someone running a 9.28 100m.

More like someone running a 10.2 and the old record is 10.5, or someone smashing the 50k road record...

Apparently 1 hour earlier, he swam a 17.81 to lead off his relay team?

Absolutely unbelievable, one of the greatest swims in college history.

Anybody that knows swimming times knows 17.63 is unbelievable. I would compare it to 18.9 for 200 track.

I guess this guy is almost a certain gold for the US in the 100 free in 2020.

Titan wrote:

Anybody that knows swimming times knows 17.63 is unbelievable. I would compare it to 18.9 for 200 track.

has he been training in Kenya?

As a terrible swimmer who can maybe swim about 20-22 seconds for one length (25 yards), starting from in the pool, that 50y record in 17.63 is pretty stunning.

Hardloper wrote:

Apparently 1 hour earlier, he swam a 17.81 to lead off his relay team?

Correct, and that was already an insanely great swim. To top that swim the same evening is just unreal.

chances are good wrote:

I guess this guy is almost a certain gold for the US in the 100 free in 2020.

Two years is a long time and Mr Dressel has had a somewhat complicated journey to his collegiate success; specifically, he quit swimming for a while in HS (and apparently had some success as a pole vaulter during his time away from swimming).

I just want to get this board excited about what he accomplished today + during the amazing NCAA career he's wrapping up this weekend. (he also holds the records in the 100y free, 100y fly, 100y breast, and 200y IM).

p.s. He also swept the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly at 2017 worlds + won four relay golds.

He is absolutely unreal.

Alright boys, let's take this discussion to LetsSwim.com. This is LetsRun.

Was not a student there but was a member of their club swim team.

The Bolles School wrote:

Was not a student there but was a member of their club swim team.

Cool. I'm guessing that means you swam with some now well known folks. Any names you'd care to drop?

This is far more impressive to me than anything Phelps has done. Phelps has exactly 0 records in the freestyle.

dkny64 wrote:

Unreal time. Coming into today, he held the record at 18.20. Proceeded to swim 18.11 in AM prelims, 17.81 leading off tonight's 200y free relay (counts for record purposes), 17.63 in final.

Thanks for posting this dkny64! To try to put in into context:

1) This is not the same stage as the Olympics obviously. But Dressel is the best swimmer in the world right now, and a lot of NCAA swimmers go on to win Worlds or the Olympics, sometimes the same year.

2) The yards vs. meters thing is a bit unfortunate. But most Americans swim yards primarily, and Dressel is at the absolute top of his game right now, as are all the swimmers that he beat tonight.

3) This was a massive drop from what was already a very strong time. It really has rocked the swimming world.

I do think Bolt is the best comparison here. There's no hyperbole in the comparison, but it is true hat this wasn't the Olympics. Perhaps the best analogue would be if Bolt were American, had skipped over his 9.69, and had done the 9.58 at US Trials.

Was referring to Dressel, not me. Goes back to a post I started last Sunday.