Caeleb Dressel won his fourth gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics and third in an individual event by crushing the men’s 50-meter freestyle and breaking the 13-year-old Olympic record. And he did it without taking a breath the entire time.
With his exceptional and explosive start off the blocks, Dressel shot out ahead of the field with his first stroke and finished with a time of 21.07 — breaking Brazil’s Cesar Cielo’s Olympic record of 21.30 from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and .16 seconds shy of Cielo’s 2009 world record.
And an efficient way to get 50 meters across the pool is not to breathe, so Dressel didn’t.
When swimmers barely turn their heads to the side to steal a quick breath, it slightly slows them down. It’s much more efficient for swimmers to keep their heads down when the race is only one length of the pool, so it’s very common for them to just opt not to breathe during the shortest race.
Here’s the overhead view of the race:
KING CAELEB 👑
Caeleb Dressel BREAKS the Olympic record to win GOLD in the men's 50m free! #TokyoOlympics
📺 NBC
💻 https://t.co/FmEtvutDRA
📱 NBC Sports App pic.twitter.com/m4EVgfIDtE— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 1, 2021
But the underwater view of the entire thing really highlights how hard they’re working beneath the surface. Plus, the underwater angle is just generally awesome.
While America held its collective breath during the 50m, so did Caeleb Dressel during the entire race.
No breath, no problem for King Caeleb. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/K3Wb6rCX25
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 1, 2021
This was Dressel’s final individual event of the Tokyo Olympics. He also won gold in the 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly and the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, and he was part of the fifth-place 4×100-meter mixed medley relay team.
