As the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics beckon, now just a year away, the medal-rich sport of swimming, with all its passion and pain, returns to the summer stage this weekend. Most of the top swimmers in the world have gathered in Fukuoka, Japan, for the 2023 world championships. Most, but not all.
Caeleb Dressel, the seven-time Olympic gold medalist who replaced the retired Michael Phelps as the nation’s best male swimmer, is not there after abruptly withdrawing from last year’s world championships because of an undisclosed health issue and taking a months-long break, then failing to make the U.