"Weird and exploitative," "I’ll never forgive the crew" - Fans criticize broadcasting of Caeleb Dressel bursting into tears after elimination in Paris

Fans have voiced dissent over NBC's broadcasting of Caeleb Dressel's emotional moments after he fell short of qualifying for the 100m butterfly finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He missed the finals after settling in 13th place in the 100m butterfly event's semifinal.

Dressel also competed in the 50m freestyle event final but had to settle in sixth place after recording a below-average time of 21.61 seconds.

Following this setback, Dressel broke into tears, embracing a member from USA Swimming's staff. During his moment of emotional struggle, NBC continued to capture him in their broadcast. This has prompted a backlash from some fans.

One such fan criticized the broadcasting crew on X, pointing to Dressel's legacy.

"I’ll never forgive the crew that decided to broadcast Caeleb Dressel crying for over 2 minutes," they said. "He’s overcome so much physically, mentally, and emotionally. He’s allowed to be upset. One race doesn’t define his legacy."

Another fan criticized NBC for closely zooming in and staying on the American swimmer as he went through intense emotions.

"Weird and exploitative for the NBC team to zoom in and stay on Caeleb Dressel processing extreme emotions but it’s extremely normal to cry."

A third fan said:

"Caeleb Dressel failed to qualify for a final swimming event and was sobbing (...) HOW ABOUT NBC CUTS AWAY?!!!"

Here are a few other reactions.

"That was disgusting. Of course he was going to be upset. He didn’t need cameras in his face or the commentators remarking about it," a fan said.

"They lingered too long. I changed the channel," another said.

"I had just turned it on... yeah, that was very rude," yet another fan said.

With his campaign over, Dressel has fallen short of defending his title in the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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Caeleb Dressel after suffering a setback at the 2024 Paris Olympics: "It's very obviously not my best work"

At the 2020 Tokyo Games, Caeleb Dressel dominated the 50m freestyle by registering an Olympic record of 21.07 seconds and topped the 100m butterfly with 42.07 seconds, another Olympic record.

Caeleb Dressel fell short of defending his 50m freestyle title at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (Images by Getty)

After his underwhelming performance in Paris, he acknowledged that the Games' initial days this year weren't his best week (via Time):

"It's very obviously not my best work, but I had really a lot of fun. It hasn't been the best week, don't need to shy away from that."

Before suffering the setback, Dressel secured a gold medal with the USA team in the 4x100m freestyle event.