Budapest (AFP)

"Why would I be upset to have one more year to extend my momentum?": American swimming star Caeleb Dressel, flourished despite the upheavals caused by Covid-19, postponing the Olympics in mind, explained that he was going through this period so uncertain, during an interview with AFP.

Weaned from competitions between March and October, the Floridian, already thirteen times world champion and double Olympic champion at 24 years old, re-tames it with the International Swimming League (ISL), a young private circuit whose second season is organized under a sanitary bubble in Budapest until the end of November.

Q: How is life in a bubble?

A: "It's okay, no problem, because everything is done to avoid the slightest risk. Obviously, I would have preferred to be able to enjoy Budapest more, but I knew what awaited us and I accept it. We are in a perfect environment and you can still go out on the island a bit (Marguerite, on the Danube, where two hotels are privatized for swimmers, note). And I have a lot of things to do, I make up for lost time : I started + Breaking Bad +, I organize my photos, my music, things that I almost forbade myself in my normal life. Life inside the bubble is not unpleasant. When I see what is happening everywhere and the almost perfect conditions in which we live here, I have no right to complain. "

Q: How did you live these seven months without competition?

A: "My God, it's been so long! It's a very strange feeling. Since I was twelve, my pace has always been the same: swimming, taking a short break, participating in an important competition, swimming. again ... This is the first time that I had to adapt and do it differently. At first, not being able to measure myself against others didn't cost me too much. I really started to feel this lack around August ".

Q: How did you feel when you restarted?

A: "It was pretty huge. I love training, although it's not partying every day, but nothing can replace competition. Until January, I had been training really hard and I I was never able to verify that all my efforts had been useful. Having the confirmation that we did the job well or badly is a very important part of the work. These are the benchmarks that I missed during all these months, find in direct confrontation the answers to my expectations. "

Q: How are you dealing with the lingering uncertainty associated with Covid-19?

A: "At the beginning, when everything was very hectic, when I had limited access to the swimming pool, it was a question of individual approach: the Covid is there, everything stops, there is no more + trials + (selections, editor's note), no more meetings, it's neither good nor bad, it's a fact, I don't have control of the situation. I made up my mind. I didn't want to Let me go. You don't have to be in the water to progress in swimming, although that obviously makes things a lot easier… There are some very important things outside of the water. ate healthily, cooked myself ... And I took full advantage of the time I had in the water by being really invested (...) I was luckier than a lot of swimmers, I didn't never really been prevented from swimming. "

Q: How did you react to the postponement of the Olympics-2020?

A: "It was a great decision. Honestly, 2020 has been a really great year for me. I feel like I had a better understanding of my sport than other years, of the way I work, how I communicate with Troy (Gregg Troy, his trainer, editor's note), about my role in the sport. So why would I be upset to have one more year to extend this dynamic? I would be crazy if I was upset just because the Olympics were supposed to take place this year. I'm not going to complain about having another year to prepare and try to capitalize on the momentum I've had since early 2020. "

Q: What are you picking up at ISL?

A: "The idea is just to do races again. The clock is not what matters at this stage. If I can do a good six-week training block, plus run and hitting the wall first is ideal. I haven't won everything so far, but I did some solid races, I swam very well technically, and the lap times were great. Around the finals, I'll slow down the pace a bit in training, then we'll see where I am exactly in terms of speed. The idea is to use these meetings to see where I am and, from there, where I can go. "

Interview by Elodie SOINARD.

© 2020 AFP