Returning Caeleb Dressel to check kind at 2026 USA National Swimming Championships: Full schedule and athletes in motion

The 2026 USA National Swimming Championships happen from 28 July to 1 August on the William Woollett Jr. Aquatics Center in Irvine, California.

This 12 months’s nationals shall be a smaller affair for the reason that swimmers chosen for the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships, which occur from 12 to fifteen August on the similar venue, won’t be collaborating.

The Pan Pacific roster was chosen based mostly on 2025 outcomes and contains most of USA’s Olympic medallists. Notable exceptions to that occasion embrace eight-time Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel, who’s constructing as much as regain his greatest kind forward of the house Olympic Games at Los Angeles 2028, a potential career-fourth.

Dressel, who turns 30 in August, took a break after competing at Paris 2024 to give attention to fatherhood and rediscover his love for swimming. Easing again slowly on his return to the pool in 2025, he has raced fewer races than ordinary since then, although extra recurrently as of December.

The three-time Olympian is predicted to race within the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m and 100m butterfly occasions in Irvine.

He clocked 21.84 within the 50 free on the 2026 TYR Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis in June, which is the very best time he has swum for the reason that 2024 Olympics. But it’s the 100 butterfly that has confirmed to be Dressel’s greatest race this season. He presently sits seventeenth on the earth among the many quickest occasions on this occasion in 2026.

The 100 fly can also be the very best race for two-time Olympic bronze medallist Ilya Kharun. The 21-year-old, who competed for Canada at Paris 2024, will make his debut on the US Nationals after asserting a swap to signify the United States in January 2026. 

Kharun can also be anticipated to be Dressel’s principal rival over the 50m fly. He gained the occasion on the 2026 TYR Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis with a U.S. Open report of twenty-two.73 seconds. Dressel has held the nationwide report for the 50m fly with a time of twenty-two.35 since 2019.

Discover the complete schedule of the five-day occasion beneath.