Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky end their 2024 US Swimming Olympic Trials with big wins

Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky ended their US Olympic Swimming Trials with big wins on Saturday (22 June) at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind.

Dressel added another event to his planned slate of races at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 after winning the men’s 100 butterfly. The seven-time Olympic champion won the 50m free on Friday night and secured a spot on the men’s 4x100m relay earlier in the week. Dressel claimed five gold medals for the United States at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. While he won’t be as busy in Paris as he was in Tokyo, he will have the chance to add substantially to his medal cabinet.

This is Dressel’s third time making the US Olympic team, and he’s one of the veterans on a team full of fresh faces. He now has the chance to be the kind of swimmer that five-time Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian was for him.

“I watched him win in London. I remember exactly where I was sitting, watching his last seven strokes where he put his head down. I remember watching that and four years later I'm on the team with him. I thought I was supposed to hate the guy when I met him, that you weren’t supposed to like your competitors, but he just showed me what a true leader is on this team, and he kept that up,” Dressel said.

“But he was the larger-than-life image for me, and turns out he was just a guy, who is just really fast in the 100 free. I think that's what all the leaders on Team USA have done. Before you know it, you're one of the leaders. I can't take credit for that; it's embedded in USA Swimming. It's historic.”

One of those young swimmers Dressel will get to know in Paris is Thomas Heilman, who took second to him on Saturday night. Heilman is just 17 years old, and earned a nomination to the US Olympic team by winning the 200m butterfly earlier this week. Dare Rose finished third, just 0.04 seconds behind Heilman.

As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.

Katie Ledecky wins her fourth race at the US Olympic Trials

Nothing about Ledecky’s week was easy. She had to swim in four different events: the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyles. Each time, she had to complete the heats, semifinals and finals. She did this while being the face of USA Swimming, doing plenty of interviews and greeting the tens of thousands of fans who were there to see her. On the first night of swimming, Brendan Hansen, the in-arena host, asked the 20,000+ fans at Lucas Oil to turn on their phone lights if they were there to see Ledecky. The football stadium lit up like the sky on a clear night.

Even with all that pressure, Ledecky kept winning. She claimed the 200m, though she said she’s unlikely to compete in the individual race in Paris. She swam the race to ensure she could be in the relay. She won the 400m. She won the 1500m. And on Saturday night, she completed the four-peat with a win in the 800m.

Ledecky triumphed in the 800m in 8:14.12. Paige Madden, who made the team earlier in the week on a relay, also earned a second nomination to the team by finishing in second place with a time of 8:20.71.

In the women’s 200m individual medley, Kate Douglass won another nomination for Paris. She finished with a time of 2:06.79, seeting a US open record, which means it was the best time swum on American soil. Douglass has the chance of becoming a star in Paris, as she also earned nominations to the US team for Paris in the 200 breaststroke and 100 freestyle.

“There was a lot of pressure this whole year and specifically leading into this meet. Obviously, my face on the stadium. When I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh wow, I really need to make this team. I obviously had confidence in myself, but it was definitely scary because I knew a lot of people had expectations for me. A lot of people had planned trips to Paris, and I was like, ‘I haven’t made it yet, but hopefully that will be fun,’” Douglass said.

Joining her in the 200m IM is Alex Walsh, who took second. She won silver in the 200m IM in Tokyo. Alex’s sister Gretchen secured a quota earlier in the week, and now Alex can join her for a family trip to Paris.

The U.S. Swimming Olympic Trials will end on Sunday (23 June) with the women's 50m free and the men's 1500m free.