Caleb Dressel failed to qualify for the World Swimming Championships in Japan (July 23-30, Fukuoka) after a disappointing performance at the USA National Championships in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Caleb Dressel missed qualifying for the World Championships in Fukuoka

In his last chance to make the U.S. team, Dressel finished 22nd in the preliminaries in the 50-meter freestyle, 1.07 seconds behind the leader.

It capped a week in which he finished third in the 50m butterfly, fifth in the 100m butterfly and 19th in the 100m freestyle, all well short of what was needed to qualify for the World Cup.

The problems of Dressel, a seven-time Olympic gold medalist, were not entirely unexpected. The 26-year-old has not competed in major events since he abruptly withdrew from the World Championships in Budapest last summer due to an unspecified health issue (David Popovici won the 100m and 200m freestyle back then).

“He’s very happy where he is now. We have a starting point and we can go from there. Obviously he wanted to get better, but for us it’s just to show a few times that he can improve.

For the first time in a long time, I see him swimming happily, and a happy athlete is a fast athlete. Obviously, he is not fast enough yet, but in the conditions he is in, he has shown good moments” – Anthony Nestyhead coach at the University of Florida, quoted by SwimSwam.

Nesti said that Dressel is able to start well, but hardly finishes the races, writes News.ro.