GAMES ON!

Maybe it’s the one-year delay. Maybe it’s the global pandemic that caused that delay and lends these Olympics more significance than any in recent memory. Or perhaps it’s the fresh energy of new events. Regardless, now—finally—is the time to learn about the athletes and sports the whole world will soon be watching.

- CHARLES COXE AND GORDY MEGROZ

GOLD STANDARD

CAELEB DRESSEL

HOMETOWN: Green Cove Springs, FL EVENT: Swimming

Michael Phelps is a tough act to follow, but Caeleb Dressel has fairly earned comparisons to the retired GSOAT (greatest swimmer of all time). While Phelps was soaking up the media glare, the decade younger Dressel was quietly carving his own place in the U.S. record books.

In 2012, he became the first swimmer younger than 16 to beat 20 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle relay, then broke a 100-yard freestyle under-16 record that had stood for 22 years. After bringing two relay golds home from Rio in 2016, he has only gotten faster. At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, he won eight medals, and—gasp!—broke Phelps’ record in the 100-meter butterfly.

Unlike many top swimmers, Dressel wasn’t born in the water, playing football as a kid until he switched his focus to swimming. Even after taking a six-month break in high school, he was recruited by the storied swimming program at the University of Florida. Since 2019, he has been a marquee attraction in the splashy new International Swimming League, and broke world records in the 50-meter freestyle and 100-meter individual medley. Maybe the most valuable Olympics training came from a two-hour window during which he swam in five races, demonstrating crazy recovery ability. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had swimming in my life,” he said of the experience.