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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Pat Forde

Dressel Lifts Young Relay Team to U.S.’s First Olympic Gold in Paris

The U.S. swimming team won the men's 4X100 freestyle relay gold medal for the third consecutive Olympics. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

PARIS — Caeleb Dressel had been there before. Exactly there. Just in a different role, at the start of a journey that came full circle Saturday.

Eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Dressel was standing on the top step of the medal podium as a member of the United States’ gold medal-winning 400-meter freestyle relay. It was his first Olympic gold, and he couldn’t keep the tears from falling. Michael Phelps, who had won approximately a thousand gold medals to that point, stood next to Dressel laughing and rubbing the 19-year-old’s head.

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