NBC Sports analyst Rowdy Gaines believes Caeleb Dressel‘s current break from swimming will last six months (into December), leaving him plenty of time to recharge for major meets in 2023 and 2024.

Gaines spoke on the monthly Olympic and Paralympic show “Chasing Gold: Paris 2024,” which premieres Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC (and will be available on Peacock starting Monday). Gaines said he has communicated with Dressel over the last year, including since Dressel took a break from swimming since June’s world championships.

Gaines noted that, after Dressel won five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, he suggested last fall that the swimmer take as much as six months off.

“When I talked to him a couple of days ago, he said, ‘I didn’t really do that [last year], but now I’m in the best place I’ve ever been,'” Gaines said.

Dressel withdrew on unspecified medical grounds from June’s world championships in Budapest after winning gold in his first two finals. He spoke publicly about it for the first time on Sept. 4.

“I haven’t swam since worlds and can honestly say I have been happy without swimming,” Dressel shared on social media. “I really miss it though. A few things I’ve done… I finally went on a honeymoon to Iceland, I bought a tractor, hiked another section of the Appalachian Trail, swam with some manatees. I know I can have swimming and happiness. I had them both at one point in my life and I’m working on it. If you need a break, take one. I’ll be back.”

Gaines said the last sentence of that statement was the most important. The next major meet is in late June: the U.S. trials for the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

“If Caeleb ends up taking six months off, which I believe he will, it’s going to take him about three months [to get the feel back for the water],” Gaines said. “No problem. We still have a long way to go for Paris. I think he’ll be ready both mentally and physically when we get to those Olympic Games.”

Gaines also addressed the state of the Katie Ledecky–Ariarne Titmus rivalry and rising Romanian star David Popovici in the “Chasing Gold” interview.

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Jordan Burroughs won his sixth world wrestling title, combining with his 2012 Olympic title to become the first U.S. wrestler with seven global gold medals.

Burroughs, 34, won all five of his matches over the last two days at the world championships in Belgrade in the 79kg division, which is not an Olympic weight class.

He beat Iran’s Mohammad Nokhodi 4-2 in Friday’s final, using his trademark double leg takedown, in a rematch of last October’s world final also won by Burroughs.

“I’m still at the top of my game,” said Burroughs, a father of four who won his first world title in 2011 and is 10-0 in medal matches between the Olympics and worlds. “Before every match, I always remind myself that I chose this. This is chosen suffering.

“Someone’s going to break this [record] one day. Today is my day.”

Burroughs, who said in June that he plans to retire after the 2024 Olympics (whether or not he makes the team), for years harbored a goal of breaking John Smith‘s American record of six combined Olympic and world titles. Adeline Gray complicated the quest by winning her sixth gold last October, as did Burroughs. Gray, 31, is on a break, giving birth to twins in July.

“I’m going until I absolutely can’t anymore,” he said Friday. “As of now, that day hasn’t come yet.”

Burroughs’ 10 medals of any color between the Olympics and worlds are second in U.S. history to Bruce Baumgartner‘s 13.

“I’m the standard now for USA wrestling,” he said. “I’ve been at this for 12 years, and there’s no one who can say that I don’t deserve this.”

Burroughs won his Olympic gold medal in 2012 in the 74kg division and competed there through last year’s Olympic Trials, where he was beaten by Kyle Dake. Burroughs then moved up to the non-Olympic 79kg division, since Dake received a bye into the October 2021 Worlds at 74kg as a reigning Olympic medalist (bronze).

Burroughs must move back into an Olympic weight class by 2024, likely returning to 74kg with an eye on dethroning Dake at Olympic Trials.

Also Friday, American David Taylor beat rival Hassan Yazdani of Iran 7-1 in a rematch of last year’s Olympic 86kg final (won by Taylor with a takedown with 17 seconds left) and last October’s world championships final (won by Yazdani).

Taylor, 31, “contemplated retiring multiple times” since his Olympic title in Tokyo and “was hurt all year, hardly could train,” due at least in part to knee swelling.

“I just didn’t know if I wanted to do it anymore,” he said. “I achieved my lifelong goal of Olympic champion. I believed if I could go to world championships eight weeks later, I’d probably be done. Going there and losing, it was hard.”

Two U.S. wrestlers won back-to-back Olympic titles, and just one in the last century — Smith in 1988 and 1992. Burroughs and Taylor are older than any previous U.S. Olympic wrestling gold medalist, according to Olympedia.org.

“My wife, my coaches, my inner circle of people, they just sat me down and said, ‘What do you want? You’ve earned the right to do whatever you want to do.’ I’m not a loser. I’m not going out losing [at the October 2021 Worlds],” Taylor said. “[Yazdani] is burning that fire for me to continue going. He’s that barrier between me and a gold medal in Paris. World championships are great, but people remember us for the Olympics.”

American Zain Retherford, the 2017 and 2018 NCAA Wrestler of the Year at Penn State, took silver in the non-Olympic 70kg division. Retherford on Thursday clinched his first world medal in his third appearance, then on Friday fell 10-0 to Japan’s Taishi Narikuni in the final.

Earlier Friday, past world champions J’den Cox (92kg), Thomas Gilman (57kg) and Dake advanced to Saturday gold-medal matches.

Wrestlers from Belarus and Russia are banned due to the war in Ukraine. Russian wrestlers won the most medals at the 2021 World Championships (18) and were second to the Americans with eight medals at the Tokyo Games.

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U.S. Olympian Lawson Craddock said he will miss the world road cycling championships that start Sunday because his visa wasn’t approved until about 20 minutes after his flight departed for Australia without him on it.

“While it still would have been physically possible to make it in time to Australia for the TT tomorrow [Sunday’s time trial], I wasn’t confident that it would allow me enough time to recover enough from the Vuelta, travel, and jet lag to allow me to put my best performance out on the road,” he posted on social media.

Craddock, 30, competed at the Tokyo Olympics in the time trial (34th place) and road race (80th). The U.S. earned zero road cycling medals for the first time since 1996. He finished 55th in the three-week Vuelta a Espana Grand Tour that ended last Sunday.

His withdrawal leaves Leah Thomas as the lone cyclist on the U.S. roster for worlds who has Olympic experience. Neilson Powless, who nearly held the lead early in July’s Tour de France, is also on the team.

The U.S. earned zero medals among the men’s and women’s elite time trials and road races at the last two worlds.

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