Caeleb Dressel qualifies for 50-meter butterfly final at the US national championships

Dressel advanced to the “A” final of the 50-meter butterfly — a non-Olympic event — with the seventh-fastest time of 23.79 seconds on Wednesday.

Caeleb Dressel at the U.S. nationals. | Photo Credit: AP

The second morning of the U.S. national championships went better for Caeleb Dressel.

Dressel advanced to the “A” final of the 50-meter butterfly — a non-Olympic event — with the seventh-fastest time of 23.79 seconds on Wednesday. That gives him at least a shot at qualifying for the world championships next month in Fukuoka, Japan.

In his first event at nationals, Dressel finished 29th in the preliminaries of the 100 freestyle, an event he won two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics.

READ | Dressel struggles to 29th in 100m freestyle at US swimming nationals

Dressel is competing in his first major meet since taking a long layoff and clearly is not at the level that carried him to five gold medals at the last Summer Games.

Dare Rose was top qualifier in the 50 fly at 23.16.