On Caeleb Dressel’s mind: Not gold medals, but a dark fantasy

By OlympicTalkAug 6, 2019, 2:01 PM EDT

NEW YORK — Caeleb Dressel, fresh off a six-gold-medal effort at the world championships, sat down with OlympicTalk for a Q&A reflecting on his previous Olympic experience and looking forward to the 2020 Tokyo Games. Lightly edited for clarity …

OlympicTalk: Everybody is talking about what happened at worlds, but let’s start with the Rio Olympics. You might have had the most pressure-packed debut swim in Olympic history, leading off the 4x100m freestyle final in Rio with a personal-best time. The vast majority of swimmers start with a preliminary heat. Did you feel the weight of that moment, given the recent history of that relay?

Dressel: No. It wasn’t until after I swam that somebody told me, geez, you did so well for it being such a spotlight event. I didn’t think anything of it until people started mentioning it. I was like, dang, I’m glad you all didn’t say anything before I stepped onto the block. But it was just another race for me. With the London Olympics, France out-touching us. And then the whole thing with Beijing, everyone knows what happened there. I guess there was a little bit of pressure that comes with it.

OlympicTalk: What was your favorite part of your first Olympic experience outside of the competition?

Dressel: We were in the athletes’ village, and I had a few other roommates. A lot of us, it was our first Olympics. Just being able to share those experiences away from the pool, messing around, playing games in the little living room we had.

OlympicTalk: Who were your roommates, and what games did you play?

Dressel: Blake Pieroni, Ryan Held, and, I think, Jack Conger and Townley Haas. We played Fun Run on the phone. It’s so outdated at this point. You literally press one button the whole game. I think we had some card games every now and then.

OlympicTalk: It’s funny that you say you didn’t realize the enormity of your first Olympic swim. Since now every other sentence people mention you is about seven or eight gold medals, records, etc. Do you wish you could go back to what it was like, at least in a pressure sense, three years ago?

Dressel: No, I wouldn’t want to change anything. If the spotlight wants to be on me, it’s totally fine. At the end of the day, it’s really just my goals, my dreams, what I feel like I’m capable of doing and shutting out anybody else who thinks different than that or wants to add onto that.

OlympicTalk: What are your goals and dreams, then? Apart from what everybody else is saying.

Dressel: Well, it’s not really about counting medals for me. It’s just about getting better every day. Not just in the water, but life in general. I know that’s such a broad thing, but it’s really just becoming a better person every day. Immersing myself in new knowledge through books, learning from swimming, putting stuff in my day-to-day life. It’s tough. I haven’t conquered my mind in any way, shape or form, but I feel like I am in a much better place now than three years ago.

OlympicTalk: You’ve mentioned specific books, from “What Doesn’t Kill Us,” that inspired your daily ice baths, to “Zen in the Martial Arts,” which you read before worlds. Anything else you’re reading?

Dressel: I just started one, “A Reaper Heretic.” It’s a dark fantasy. My friend from high school wrote the book, got it published and it’s on Amazon.

OlympicTalk: You said you read “Zen in the Martial Arts” three or four times.

Dressel: I read it in high school before junior worlds and in 2017 before world championships. I read it again before world championships in 2019. So I need to start keeping that a tradition. It’s crazy. I have every page pretty much highlighted. How I read my books is if I find something good, I’ll put the page number in the front of the book. The whole front of the book is like every page number. It’s very simple stuff. Most of these books, they are well-thought-out and very original ideas, but it’s very simple stuff you can apply to your day-to-day life. It goes into the history of it, and it’s really about the mindset.

OlympicTalk: Back to the topic of the moment. Do you want to expand your program in the next year, possibly get to eight Olympic events?

Dressel: I would not want to limit myself in any way, but I also don’t want to just sign up or try to do a bunch of different events and then just completely overdo it. Worlds is tricky, because one of the days I have a triple. I would have loved to be on the 800m free relay at worlds, but that’s two triple days back to back at night, and then I have the morning swims. You have to know your body in the sense that it is going to make you tired.

But for next year, the 200m free is something I would like to dabble with. I dabbled with it this year a little bit. I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I would want to add. I’ll stick to the basics. Me and [coach Gregg] Troy have a plan, a training regimen that we are confident is going to work if we do want to expand to different events.

OlympicTalk: Have you seen the Olympic schedule?

Dressel: No, I have not. Troy knows it like the back of his hand.

OlympicTalk: It looks more favorable than worlds. Whether or not you add the 200m free and the 4x200m free, you would only have one triple of all the finals sessions — a 50m free semifinal, 100m butterfly final and mixed-gender relay.

OlympicTalk: It’s really just the finals that get you. I know you have to make it into a big-boy heat in the semis, but it just carries a little bit less with it. It sounds all right.

OlympicTalk: Does the magical eight Olympic gold medals mean anything to you?

Dressel: I’m not in this sport to beat out one guy. I know the comparisons are going to be made, but for me, it’s all from within what I feel like I am capable of doing. It’s not to beat one guy. I don’t know if that’s disappointing to a lot of people, but it’s not why I’m in it. I consider him a better, more talented swimmer than I am. I’m trying to take what skill set I have and really max that out.

I don’t enjoy the time during worlds. The meet is not fun itself. Having to step up on those blocks and racing is fun. Winning, yes, it’s very fun. But the focus it takes, the physical abuse you take just from the meet itself. When it’s after, yeah, I’m very proud of myself for doing it, kind of watching the year come together. But during the actual thing, the amount of focus, it’s really not that much fun. For me, it’s not counting medals.

OlympicTalk: We’ve talked to you before about the bandana and Ms. McCool, but you also kneel down and pray next to the block before races. Are you saying the same thing every time?

Dressel: It’s whatever is on my mind. It’s completely random. I’m just thankful for the opportunity to get up and race. I’m not asking to win or anything. God doesn’t play favorites like that. Just another opportunity to race, do what I love to do. Depending on how I feel, I’ll say, I know this is going to hurt really, really bad. So just ask for strength maybe those last 10 meters.

OlympicTalk: What was Troy’s post-mortem on worlds?

Dressel: This year was not an easy year. Every year is so different. I hit a bad rut just with my training. I was bad for, I want to say, two or three months. I hit a rut where I just wasn’t putting up good times. I get angry with myself when I’m not putting up good times. For me, that’s a decline of self-improvement. Which I know it’s not because you can’t be on every single day. But this year was really tough. With Troy, there was a lot of self-doubt even leading up to the meet because you’re not putting up times in practice. I’m supposed to be going crazy fast times. It can be very frustrating in this sport. Troy kept telling me, this is where the experience comes in. He’s seen it before. For me, I act like it’s a new thing every year, but I do drop down a little bit before ramping back up. He just kept calming me down.

To see it come together at the end, be able to share that with Troy. He’s so funny. He just thanks me. He goes, thanks for having me along. It’s like, hey, you realize this is why I’m working with you. I need you. I need you to be my coach. He was proud of me. There’s nothing better than hearing your coach say he’s proud of you. And Troy doesn’t hand out compliments all the time, so when he does say them, you know it’s something special.

I’ve watched my sister swim, and it sucks because you are just out of control of everything. So, for Troy to have to watch all of my races and not have any control of anything, it’s very nerve-racking. I think it’s worse to be a spectator than to actually be the one performing. Troy’s a tough one, but I know he gets nervous.

MORE: Ryan Lochte wins national title in return from suspension

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Ilia Malinin eyed new heights at figure skating worlds, but a jump to gold requires more

By Philip HershMar 25, 2023, 1:10 PM EDT

At 18 years old, Ilia Malinin already has reached immortality in figure skating for technical achievement, being the first to land a quadruple Axel jump in competition.

The self-styled “Quadg0d” already has shown the chutzpah (or hubris?) to go for the most technically difficult free skate program ever attempted at the world championships, including that quad Axel, the hardest jump anyone has tried.

It helped bring U.S. champion Malinin the world bronze medal Saturday in Saitama, Japan, where he made more history as the first to land the quad Axel at worlds.

But it already had him thinking that the way to reach the tops of both the worlds and Olympus might be to acknowledge his mortal limits.

Yes, if Malinin (288.44 points) had cleanly landed all six quads he did instead of going clean on just three of the six, it would have closed or even overcome the gap between him and repeat champion Shoma Uno of Japan (301.14) and surprise silver medalist Cha Jun-Hwan (296.03), the first South Korean man to win a world medal.

That’s a big if, as no one ever has done six clean quads in a free skate.

And the energy needed for those quads, physical and mental, hurts Malinin’s chances of closing another big gap with the world leaders: the difference in their “artistic” marks, known as component scores.

Malinin’s technical scores led the field in both the short program and free skate. But his component scores were lower than at last year’s worlds, when he finished ninth, and they ranked 10th in the short program and 11th in the free this time. Uno had an 18.44-point overall advantage over Malinin in PCS, Cha a 13.47 advantage.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Chock, Bates, and a long road to gold | Results

As usual in figure skating, some of the PCS difference owes to the idea of paying your dues. After all, at his first world championships, eventual Olympic champion Nathan Chen had PCS scores only slightly better than Malinin’s, and Chen’s numbers improved substantially by the next season.

But credit Malinin for quickly grasping the reality that his current skating has a lot of rough edges on the performance side.

“I’ve noticed that it’s really hard to go for a lot of risks,” he said in answer to a press conference question about what he had learned from this competition. “Sometimes going for the risks you get really good rewards, but I think that maybe sometimes it’s OK to lower the risks and go for a lot cleaner skate. I think it will be beneficial next season to lower the standards a bit.”

So could it be “been-there, done-that” with the quad Axel? (and the talk of quints and quad-quad combinations?)

Saturday’s was his fourth clean quad Axel in seven attempts this season, but it got substantially the lowest grade of execution (0.36) of the four with positive marks. It was his opening jump in the four-minute free, and, after a stopped-in-your tracks landing, his next two quads, flip and Lutz, were both badly flawed.

And there were still some three minutes to go.

Malinin did not directly answer about letting the quad Axel go now that he has definitively proved he can do it. What he did say could be seen as hinting at it.

“With the whole components factor … it’s probably because you know, after doing a lot of these jumps, (which) are difficult jumps, it’s really hard to try to perform for the audience,” he said.

“Even though some people might enjoy jumping, and it’s one of the things I enjoy, but I also like to perform to the audience. So I think next season, I would really want to focus on this performing side.”

Chen had told me essentially the same thing for a 2017 Ice Network story (reposted last year by NBCOlympics.com) about his several years of ballet training. He regretted not being able to show that training more because of the program-consuming athletic demands that come with being an elite figure skater.

“When I watch my skating when I was younger, I definitely see all this balletic movement and this artistry come through,” Chen said then. “When I watch my artistry now, it’s like, ‘Yes, it’s still there,’ but at the same time, I’m so focused on the jumps, it takes away from it.”

The artistry can still be developed and displayed, as Chen showed and as prolific and proficient quad jumpers like Uno and the now retired two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan have proved.

For another perspective on how hard it is to combine both, look at the difficulty it posed for the consummate performer, Jason Brown, who had the highest PCS scores while finishing a strong fifth (280.84).

Since Brown dropped his Sisyphean attempts to do a clean quad after 26 tries (20 in a free skate), the last at the 2022 U.S. Championships, he has received the two highest international free skate scores of his career, at the 2022 Olympics and this world meet.

It meant Brown’s coming to terms with his limitations and the fact that in the sport’s current iteration, his lack of quads gives him little chance of winning a global championship medal. What he did instead was give people the chance to see the beauty of his blade work, his striking movement, his expressiveness.

He has, at 28, become an audience favorite more than ever. And the judges Saturday gave Brown six maximum PCS scores (10.0.)

“I’m so happy about today’s performance,” Brown told media in the mixed zone. “I did my best to go out there and skate my skate. And that’s what I did.”

The quadg0d is realizing that he, too, must accept limitations if he wants to achieve his goals. Ilia Malinin can’t simply jump his way onto the highest steps of the most prized podiums.

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at the last 12 Winter Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCSports.com.

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Shoma Uno repeats as world figure skating champion; Ilia Malinin tries 6 quads for bronze

By OlympicTalkMar 25, 2023, 10:47 AM EDT

Japan’s Shoma Uno repeated as world figure skating champion, performing the total package of jumps and artistry immediately after 18-year-old American Ilia Malinin attempted a record-tying six quadruple jumps in his free skate to earn the bronze medal.

Uno, 25 and the leader after Thursday’s short program, prevailed with five quad attempts (one under-rotated) in Saturday’s free skate.

He finished, fell backward and lay on home ice in Saitama, soaking in a standing ovation amid a sea of Japanese flags. Japan won three of the four gold medals this week, and Uno capped it off with guts coming off a reported ankle injury.

He is the face of Japanese men’s skating after two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu retired in July and Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama missed most of this season with leg and ankle injuries.

“There were many shaky jumps today, but I’m happy I was able to get a good result despite not being in a good condition these past two weeks,” Uno said, according to the International Skating Union (ISU). “I know I caused a lot of concerns to everyone around me, but I was able to pay them back and show my gratitude with my performance today.”

Silver medalist Cha Jun-Hwan became the first South Korean man to win a world championships medal. Cha, a 21-year-old who was fifth at the Olympics, had to change out broken skate boots before traveling to Japan, one year after withdrawing from worlds after a 17th-place short program, citing a broken skate boot.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Results

Malinin, ninth in his senior worlds debut last year, planned the most difficult program of jumps in figure skating history — six quads, including a quad Axel. Malinin is the only person to land a quad Axel in competition and did so again Saturday. He still finished 12.7 points behind Uno and 7.59 behind Cha.

Malinin had the top technical score (jumps, spins, step sequences) in both programs, despite an under-rotation and two other negatively graded jumps among his seven jumping passes in the free skate.

His nemesis was the artistic score, placing 10th and 11th in that category in the two programs (18.44 points behind Uno). Unsurprising for the only teen in the top 13, who is still working on that facet of his skating, much like a young Nathan Chen several years ago.

“After doing a lot of these jumps — hard, difficult jumps — it’s really hard to try to perform for the audience,” said Malinin, who entered worlds ranked second in the field by best score this season behind Uno.

Chen, who is unlikely to compete again after winning last year’s Olympics, remains the lone skater to land six fully rotated quads in one program (though not all clean). Malinin became the youngest U.S. male singles skater to win a world medal since Scott Allen in 1965. He was proud of his performance, upping the ante after previously trying five quads in free skates this season, but afterward weighed whether the risk was worth it.

“Sometimes going for the risk, you get really good rewards, but I think that maybe sometimes it’s OK to lower the risks and try not to take as much risk and go for a lot cleaner skate,” he said. “I think that’ll be beneficial to do next season is to lower the standards a bit.”

Malinin was followed by Frenchman Kévin Aymoz, who before the pandemic was the world’s third-ranked skater behind Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu, then placed ninth, 11th and 12th at the last three global championships.

Jason Brown, a two-time U.S. Olympian, was fifth in his first international competition since last year’s Olympics. He was the lone man in the top 15 to not attempt a quad, a testament to his incredible artistic skills for which he received the most points between the two programs.

“I didn’t think at the beginning of the year that I even would be competing this year, so I’m really touched to be here,” the 28-year-old said, according to the ISU. “I still want to keep going [competing] a little longer, but we’ll see. I won’t do promises.”

Earlier Saturday, Madison Chock and Evan Bates became the oldest couple to win an ice dance world title and the second set of Americans to do so. More on that here.

World championships highlights air Saturday from 8-10 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app.

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