Gold on hold: Ryan Murphy, Caeleb Dressel keep swimming toward Olympic dreams

For Caeleb Dressel, 2020 was supposed to be the summer to finally bring home individual Olympic gold.

For Ryan Murphy, 2020 was expected to be the year to extend his backstroke reign.

Then 2020 happened. Then came the virus that paused the world. Then came March 24, when Dressel and Murphy — and billions of others — found out their plans were changing fast.

Tokyo called timeout. Gold was on hold.

"When [the postponement] officially came down, I didn't view it as a total shock, because everything [in sports] was canceled," Murphy said, by way of a teleconference from Hungary on the online meeting platform Zoom. "So we were just sort of following along course."

Instead, the Northeast Florida natives are waiting. And they're swimming.

Dressel and Murphy have spent most of the past two months competing in the International Swimming League, a second-year competition bringing together squads of many of the world's most accomplished swimmers in a team-based format that stretches through the next-to-last week of November in Budapest, Hungary.

"Every day is something different," said Dressel, a Green Cove Springs native and Clay High School graduate.

He's among four Jacksonville-area swimmers in the league — his younger sister, Sherridon, is also racing alongside him for the Cali Condors. 

Murphy, the Bolles School graduate who set the 100-meter backstroke world record and won gold three times during the summer of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, swims for the L.A. Current, joining another Bolles swimmer in Claire Rasmus.

Both are swimming well, very well: Dressel leads the International Swimming League's MVP standings. Murphy stands a close second among male swimmers, fourth overall.

For both, the competition is the important thing.

"The biggest thing is just getting back into racing," Murphy said. "The past six months, it's not like I just sat on my hands. I was working really hard, and I think it's easy to fall into a loop of just working really hard. When you go to races, you recognize what it really is that you've got to work on, and I'm learning a lot here."

As he counts down the weeks toward his dream summer, Murphy and his fellow area swimming stars are spending the autumn in a Budapest bubble.

Inside, they're keeping up their pace as organizers try to shut out the coronavirus pandemic that already pushed the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo into next summer.

Next summer... they hope.

"Fingers crossed, everything moves forward as planned," Murphy said. "We've seen a lot of sports leagues be able to have success in hosting events."

LIFE IN THE BUBBLE

The swimmers entered the bubble in October for the second annual edition of the ISL.

While the league already had attracted multiple elite swimmers from both inside and outside the United States — Olympic champions Ranomi Kromowidjojo (Netherlands), Chad le Clos (South Africa), Florent Manaudou (France) and Sarah Sjöström (Sweden) are among the competitors — the long pause in competition during the pandemic has made the series even more significant for Murphy.

"We're so excited to race," Murphy said. "With COVID and the whole quarantine when it was implemented, that was six months without racing. And this is a tough sport to do regardless, but when you're not getting to race, it's a really, really hard sport. Getting out here, it's just nice to get back into that flow of racing, and racing the best of the world."

Much like the bubble formats used in the NBA and NHL this summer, athletes' restrictions are tightly controlled, a measure aimed at diminishing exposure to the disease in Budapest. Coronavirus spread remains active there, and Hungarian officials tightened curbs on schools and restaurants earlier in November after the country's new cases topped 5,000 per day.

Still, while it's a bubble, it's no prison.

"We're allowed to explore around Budapest as much as we can within the bubble for 90 minutes," Sherridon Dressel said. "It's been nice. We've found a few cool locations around the hotel. There's a fountain and a few parks that we got to go explore. It's really great here. I know we don't really get to see all of Budapest, but it's nice being able to have time outside."

Murphy said that he's trying to catch streams of college football games from his hotel room, a sliver of normalcy in a world far from it.

"I think the biggest thing is trying to maintain balance out here," Murphy said. "I think the situation is great, the hotel is awesome, the food is good, and we're feeling safe with the health protocols. The hardest thing is just making sure that you're getting away from swimming every once in a while."

Even with those slices of American life, though, the bubble has its challenges.

"I do miss back home. I get homesick a lot," Dressel said. "It's fun traveling across the world, swimming in some new places, but Florida's my home and Florida always will be. I'll get to go see my parents [later], and they're the first ones I will see when I get back. But it's nice having Sherridon and a little piece of home with me."

The opportunity to compete alongside her older brother in one of her first tastes of elite international swimming is making an impact for Sherridon Dressel, a 10-time All-American at the University of Florida.

"I've been having the time of my life here. ... This is my first international meet, so I'm just kind of going into it with an open mind, trying to enjoy every little bit," she said. "It's a whole new experience for me. I've never really gotten to compete against the fastest people in the world. I've gotten to compete against the fastest people in the SEC or the NCAA, but I've never had an opportunity like this."

Homesickness or not, Budapest holds happy memories for Caeleb Dressel. It was there that he won seven gold medals at the 2017 FINA World Swimming Championships, matching the 2007 feat of Michael Phelps.

That set the stage for his summer 2019 triumph in Gwangju, South Korea. There, Dressel surpassed the all-time world championship record with eight medals, six of them gold, setting himself up alongside Murphy as the faces of American swimming.

He has lost none of his championship zest. Dressel set his latest world record in Budapest on Nov. 16, swimming 49.88 to win the 100-meter individual medley, a somewhat rare distance that isn't contested in either the world championships or the Olympics.

"It's always going to have a special place," he said. "People call it a breakout meet [in 2017] or whatever, but that's not what I consider it. Finally reached a sweet spot with [USA Swimming, University of Florida and former Bolles coach Gregg] Troy where I was just ready to go."

For Dressel, swapping the Sunshine State for life in the bubble was a particularly difficult call. He said he had just finished closing on his future home — Dressel and his fiancee, former Creekside High School state champion Meghan Haila, have scheduled their wedding for February — while continuing preparations for his new life.

"It was pretty hard leaving that, a big milestone within my life, getting everything in order, the furniture, the painting, and all that," Dressel said. "So it was kind of tough leaving that and going halfway across the world for six weeks."

For the First Coast swimmers, the bubble is also a place to reconnect. All four swam for the Bolles Sharks — while Murphy and Rasmus graduated from the school, the Dressel siblings both raced for the club program while attending Clay.

"It's awesome to see how someone like Caeleb has progressed in his career, and now seeing Sherridon move into a professional career is really cool to see," Murphy said. "I've known them for so long. I first met Caeleb when I was like 5 years old in River City Swim League. We've got a great connection, we know so many of the same people and there's been a lot of shared experiences over our lifetime. He's a guy who's a friend for life."

EYES ON THE FUTURE

Now, each stroke is taking them one step closer to Tokyo.

It was on March 24 that Murphy and Dressel, along with the whole world, learned the news.

Tokyo 2020 was out. Tokyo 2021 would, organizers hoped, take its place.

"Obviously, there's a part of you that's like, 'Man, I put a ton [of work] into that, and I didn't really get to see the results.' Obviously there's that," Murphy said. "At the same time, I know that work was not for nothing. That work didn't disappear."

For the 25-year-old Murphy, winner of the 100 and 200 back in Rio, Tokyo represents one more chance to add to his medal collection, while extending an unbroken string of American dominance in the event dating to 1996. In the 100, the line runs from Jeff Rouse to Lenny Krayzelburg to Aaron Peirsol (twice) to Matt Grevers to Murphy; in the 200, Murphy succeeded Tyler Clary, Ryan Lochte, Peirsol, Krayzelburg and Brad Bridgewater. Even at Barcelona 1992, the last Olympics without a backstroke champion for USA Swimming, the 200 back champion was Jacksonville native and current Episcopal School of Jacksonville coach Martin Zubero, swimming for Spain.

"It's nice to feel that competitiveness again, getting up there, looking to my left, looking to my right like, 'All right, who's going to win today?' I love that feeling," Murphy said. "That's why I compete, and it's great to get reacquainted with the nerves, the adrenaline."

For Dressel, winning Olympic gold would put the icing on the cake of a career that's already brought him world records and the swimmer of the year award from international swimming publication Swimming World in 2017 and 2019.

"I started swimming at the age of 5, and to see that come together and to finally see myself reach the potential I thought I was always capable of becoming, it was nice," he said.

Still, Olympic gold in individual races has eluded him. 

Dressel twice won gold medals as part of United States relays in Rio de Janeiro, teaming with Phelps, Ryan Held and Nathan Adrian to win the 4x100 free relay and racing preliminary heats of the victorious medley relay. When he swam the 100 free final, though, he finished only sixth.

For Tokyo, Dressel was the reigning world champion and likely favorite in three races — the 100 free, 50 free and 100 fly — with the potential to earn several additional medals in American relays. 

But he's taking the delay in stride.

"I felt I've had a great year so far, so why would I be the one to be upset to have another year to get the ball rolling?" he said.

Dressel noted that with every successful race inside the bubble, the league is demonstrating a way forward for sports, even as the pandemic remains active. He's hopeful that officials with the International Olympic Committee will be able to learn from the ISL's experience.

"I assume that the people in charge can get [the Olympics] up and running," he said. "ISL has proved that it's definitely possible. ... We had 300-something athletes and they bubbled everyone. We have our own practice times. We don't cross over with teams often at all except when we're racing, really. So I trust the people that are in charge of the Olympics to be able to duplicate what ISL's done."

So the work goes on. In Hungary, through the fall. In the United States, upon their return from the bubble. Then, they hope, Tokyo will prove to be their reward.

"I would have loved for it to happen this summer. I was ready for it to happen this summer," Murphy said. "I'm going to be ready for it to happen next summer, and that's where I'm going to be keeping my head at."