Caeleb Dressel Rattles World Record With 50.08 100m Butterfly

Caeleb Dressel of the United States swam a 50.08 in prelims of the 100 meter butterfly Friday morning at the 2017 FINA World Championship. His time rattles Michael Phelps' world record time of 49.82.

Jul 28, 2017 by Maclin Simpson

Caeleb Dressel Rattles World Record With 50.08 100m Butterfly

2017 FINA World Championships

July 23-30, 2017
Budapest, Hungary
Dagály Aquatics Arena
SCHEDULE
PSYCH SHEET
LIVE RESULTS

Men 100m Butterfly -- Prelims

World Record: 49.82 -- Michael Phelps (USA), 2009
Championship Record: 49.82 -- Michael Phelps (USA), 2009
World Junior Record: 51.23 -- Kristoff Milak (HUN), 2017
American Record: 49.82 -- Michael Phelps (USA), 2009

Stunned. Speechless. Awestruck. What else can be said about Caeleb Dressel? As a matter of fact, a lot has been said about Dressel leading up to and during these World Championships -- but time after time he continues to earn the enormous amounts of praise and media attention with his performances in the water.

Coming into the meet, Friday was slated to be a big day for Dressel with the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle in the same session and little time in between. How would he handle the double? Well, all questions have been answered and all doubts cast aside. Dressel swam a 21.61 for the No. 2 seed in the 50m freestyle behind Brazil's Bruno Fratus in 21.51. But what he did less than 30 minutes after thew blew everyone out of the water -- literally.

Dressel swam a 50.08 in the prelims of the 100m butterfly -- a lifetime best by almost 0.8 of a second, the fourth-fastest performance of all time, and the top seed by over a full second.

Comparative splits to Michael Phelps' world record of 49.82:

	*Michael Phelps (USA), 2009*	*Caeleb Dressel (USA), 2017*
*50m:*	23.36	23.41
100m:	26.46	26.67
*FINAL:*	49.82	50.08

After the race, Dressel looked shocked. Emotionless. Like he wasn't expecting that -- which makes us all think there is more in the tank for Friday night's semifinals. Could we see one of the most famed world records on the books go down? Stay tuned.

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