INDIANAPOLIS — American swimming stars Caeleb Dressel and Simone Manuel should have returned from long layoffs to secure Olympic relay spots Wednesday night.
Dressel, who won five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, will not get the chance to defend her 100m freestyle title in Paris after finishing third behind Chris Guiliano and Jack Alexy in the US preliminaries. .
Manuel finished fourth in the women’s 100m freestyle, with potential star Kate Douglass winning and Torri Huske second.
While only the top two finishers in each event qualify for the Olympics individually, the top four finishers are guaranteed a spot in the 4×100 freestyle relay.
Dressel smiled broadly as she hugged the swimmers ahead of her, saying she was happy to participate in the relay that aims to set a new world record at the Olympics.
“That’s an unbelievably fast top four, top five. Oh my god, top six,” he said, looking at the times displayed on the scoreboard at Lucas Oil Stadium. “They’re a great group. They’re fast.”
Dressel and Manuel still have a chance to race privately in Paris. Dressel has the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly (the other two events he won in Tokyo) and Manuel has the 50m freestyle.
In perhaps the most telling of the meet, Katie Ledecky delivered another dominant performance in the 1,500-meter freestyle to earn her third victory at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Ledecky added wins in the 200m and 400m freestyle, but has no plans to swim the shorter events in Paris. She is also a heavy favorite to win the 800 free title before leaving Indy.
Manuel, the first black woman to win an individual swimming gold medal when she tied for first in the event at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, entered the 100m free event hoping to fully recover from overtraining syndrome.
Even though the results were not good, Manuel was moved just by participating in the relay.
“It means everything to me,” she said through tears on deck in front of a crowd of 22,209. “It’s a miracle that I can stand here and race again. People close to me know the journey it took to get here. I’m so proud of myself and proud of Team USA.”
Douglass was only fourth at the turn, but reached the finish with a winning time of 52.56 seconds. Huske finished in 52.93, with Gretchen Walsh taking the lead at the halfway point and finishing third in 53.13.
Manuel followed with a time of 53.25, while fifth-place finisher Abbey Weitzeil (53.70) is also likely to compete in her third Olympics as a relay option.
On the men’s team, Guiliano and Alexy were tied at the turn, but Guiliano secured the wall in 47.38 seconds, beating Alexy by one-nine-hundredth of a second. The margin was closer for third, with Dressel missing out on an individual spot by just 600ths.
After starring in Tokyo, Dressel retired from the sport during the run-up to the 2022 World Championships and later revealed that she needed an extended period of time away to rediscover her love for the sport.
“I’m trying to have fun. I’m having fun,” Dressel told the large crowd. “You don’t know how much the love I get from you means to me. It’s been really hard.”
Hunter Armstrong finished fourth, while Ryan Held and Matt King are also likely to be added to the Olympic team as relay swimmers.
Other winners on Wednesday night were 17-year-old Thomas Heilman in the men’s 200m butterfly and Matthew Fallon in the 200m breaststroke.
Ledecky touched in 15 minutes, 37.35 seconds, more than half a lap ahead of second-place Katie Grimes (15:57.77).
“I wish I could go a little faster, but I will.” “She already holds the record for most individual gold medals by a female swimmer in Olympic history, with six,” said Ledecky. “It will get better in a few weeks.”
Grimes also added a win in the 400 individual medley, earning her second individual event in Paris. She will swim indoors and outdoors at the Olympics, and she will also compete in the 10km ocean race.
Manuel won two gold and two silver medals at the Rio Olympics. This was a groundbreaking achievement for swimmers of color in a predominantly white sport. But overtraining syndrome wrecked his body ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed due to the pandemic.
Manuel wasn’t even eligible to defend his title in the 100m freestyle, but he worked hard to qualify for the 50m freestyle. In her Tokyo, she was eliminated in the semifinals of her only individual event, and her only medal came as an anchor for the 4×100 free relay team, in which she finished third.
After the Olympics, she was told by her doctors to stop all physical activity for at least six months to give her body time to recover properly.
Douglas won a bronze medal in the 200 individual medley in Tokyo, making him one of America’s most versatile swimmers.
She has won a total of 14 medals across all disciplines, including freestyle, breaststroke, individual medley and relay, in the last three World Championships.
Now she’s heading back to the Olympics, but there’s still a lot of work to be done on Indy.
Douglass competed in five events and recorded a tough double on Wednesday. She came back from winning the 100m freestyle and set her best time in the 200m breaststroke semi-finals, putting her as favorite to beat local favorite Lilly King in Thursday’s final.
Heilman becomes the youngest American male Olympic swimmer since Michael Phelps joined the Sydney team at age 15.
Luke Whitlock, 18, claimed that distinction the night before by finishing second in the 800m freestyle. Then a younger man made the team as Heilman took his first touch in 1 minute 54.50 seconds.
“It’s going to be amazing,” Heilman said. “I’m looking forward to hanging out with the team and building relationships that will last a lifetime. Going to the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m looking forward to cherishing every moment.”
Luca Urlando took the expected second place spot in Paris with a time of 1:55.08.
