Caeleb Dressel skips 200m freestyle in favor of 100m butterfly at Pro Swim Series Westmont 2024

Caeleb Dressel is competing in the 2024 TYR Pro Swim Series for the first time since becoming a father. The seven-time Olympic gold medalist is set to swim the 50 and the 100 butterfly and 100 free.

Dressel, as per SwimSwam, is expected to compete in the 100 butterfly. It said the star swimmer would not compete in the 200 free. Dressel achieved world records in the 100m butterfly (long course and short course).

He has axed the 200 free at the Pro Swim Series Westmont 2024. Dressel's decision comes despite him recording a personal best time of 1:32.57 in the 200 SCY Freestyle during the Florida Invitational early last month.

He won the US Open title in the 100 fly in December 2023 in 51.31. However, Dressel did not compete at February's 2024 Worlds to focus on training for the upcoming Paris Olympics.

The American swimmer won five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics.

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When Caeleb Dressel abruptly left the 2022 World Championships

Dressel shocked fans in 2022 when he suddenly pulled out of the 2022 World Championships in Hungary. He left abruptly after two gold medals in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay and the individual title in the 50m butterfly.

Caeleb Dressel took a break from swimming after he suddenly left the 2022 World Championships.

The star swimmer told Sports Illustrated that his body kept score of the stress. Dressel said:

"It all came down. There's lot of things I shoved down and they all came boiling up. So I didn't really have a choice. I used to pride myself in shoving things down and pushing it aside."

He added:

"It worked for a very long time in my career...until I couldn't do that anymore. A bunch of things kind of came crashing down at once. I knew that was my red flag. Multiple red flags. A huge red flag."

Anthony Nesty, Dressel's Gator Swim Club coach, confirmed that the Olympic swimmer took a mental health break. He believes mental health is a serious issue. Nesty said:

"Everybody deals with it differently. Sometimes it takes time to heal from that, and everybody heals differently."

Dressel, the 15-time World Championships medalist, returned to swimming in late February 2023. He started off with three practices per week, and added one additional workout every two weeks. Dressel made his presence felt at the 2023 Atlanta Classic, where he recorded 22.92s in the prelims for the men's 50m freestyle.