At the 2022 World Championships, the Americans won the 4x100m freestyle relay with an average age of just 24. But on the final night, in the 4x100m medley, they were handed a rare defeat by a resurgent Italian team — that lineup averaged nearly 26. For the U.S. to remain dominant at future Worlds and Olympics, a new star needed to rise.

Enter Jack Alexy, who now at age 22 has the experience and pedigree to be that guy the United States needs on relays.

Training at the same pool with the same coach that Olympic champion Nathan Adrian had during his career, Alexy was the star of a new generation of men’s sprinters in the United States. Caeleb Dressel led the team in the wake of Adrian from 2017 - 2022, but took an extended break after the 2022 Worlds and many questioned if he’d ever come back. Without Dressel, the United States needed to find its next guy in the 50m and 100m freestyle, as well as the two sprint relays.

Three years later, Alexy came home with a silver in the 100m freestyle and a bronze in the 50m at the recent World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. In the 100m, he broke Dressel's American record with a 46.81 in the semis, en route to a 46.92 in the final, faster than what Dressel ever accomplished in his already storied career.

His most notable achievement of the World Championships came on the final night in the 4x100m medley relay. Alexy’s 45.95 on the end to secure bronze was the fastest anyone had ever been on a relay aside from Pan Zhanle’s 45.92 in the same relay last year at the Olympics.

The swim came at the end of a long week of discussions around the American team’s struggle with acute gastroenteritis in the lead-up to the meet, as well as questions surrounding whether the men’s medley relay for the Americans could even make the final, let alone the podium. After missing the final in the mixed medley relay earlier in the week, many American fans were nervous about the possibility of a repeat in the men’s event.

With an international rookie on the lead-off in Tommy Janton, followed by Josh Matheny, who scratched the 200m breaststroke due to illness, and Dare Rose, who didn’t even swim the 100m butterfly at the meet, the team was in fourth at 300 meters and a second and a half away from a medal. Alexy seemingly put the team on his back to get the Americans the bronze at 3:28.62, beating an Italian team with two silver medalists from the week on the front end at 3:28.72.

Janton, Matheny, and Rose swam what they needed to do, but Alexy swam out of his skin to get the bronze.

“A lot of people have been doubting this relay specifically and I’m really proud of these guys for getting the job done and getting on the podium,” Alexy said in closing the team’s mixed zone interview in Singapore.

“He’s just had an incredible week and an incredible couple of years,” Matheny said of watching Alexy swim. “(He) and I have been swimming for the national team since Budapest Junior Worlds and watching him climb the ranks as well, and just become America’s premiere sprinter. It’s just an honour to be there every step of the way and to be his friend while he just throws down splits that you would not believe. I know the three of us have unbelievable confidence that when he gets in the water, as long as he sniffs them, you can get them.”

Taking the Pressure Off

Swimming is one of the few unique sports that doesn’t require a defensive strategy in preparation. It’s just you and the clock. Racing is a part of the preparation, but the clock is what dictates the outcome of the race. For Alexy, his 2023 breakout was followed by an expectation that he’d be “the guy” for the US in the 100m freestyle at the 2024 Olympics.

After swimming 47.08 in the heats of the Olympic Trials and finishing second in the final to Chris Guiliano, he was one of the gold medal favorites for one of the marquee events of the swimming programme.

On the first night, he won the first gold for the United States at the Games on the 4x100m freestyle relay, leading off in 47.6. In the heats of the 100m freestyle, he was the top seed at 47.5, but in the final, he couldn’t rise to the moment, falling to seventh at 47.96, his slowest of his five 100m freestyles of the entire week.

“I had this expectation in my mind of this ‘magic number’ and at the time it was 46.8 and that was what I should be able to go and need to go in order to win the Olympics,” Alexy told World Aquatics before the World Championships. “I was putting tremendous amounts of pressure on myself during practice when I was supposed to be hitting my splits but also outside of practice. I was just thinking about it way too much and couldn’t find a balance between training and racing and just having a normal life.”

Coming back to his home in Berkeley, California in the fall, he made a shift in how he approached training. Physically, he was prepared to swim fast at the Olympics, but mentally, he wasn’t.

“This year I have been able to separate training and my lifestyle a lot better and been able to focus on one aspect of my life at each time and realize that swimming is not the only thing I need to be focusing on,” Alexy said, who recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in May. “That helps offset the nerves and pressure going into big meets. In the days leading up to and on race day, I had this goal time in my mind. It is helpful to have that during regular training but you also don’t want to be too consumed with that. I’ve done those races my whole life and was trying to go back to what I had been used to doing and love what I’m doing.”

In June at the Trials for the World Championships in Indianapolis, Alexy became just the second American man to swim the 100m freestyle inside 47 seconds when he did it in the heats.

“That was pretty cool. There’s only a handful of guys that have touched that number. It’s pretty cool to be in the conversation with those guys. I wasn’t expecting that time at all during prelims,” Alexy said.

A few weeks later in Singapore, Alexy lowered his time down to 46.8 in the semis of the 100m freestyle, and a showdown with 200m Olympic champ and former 100m world record holder David Popovici awaited in the final. It took 47.64 to advance to the final of the 100m freestyle and without the Olympic champion Pan Zhanle in the field, it was wide open with Popovici and Alexy serving as the frontrunners alongside one of the best racers of all-time in Australia’s Kyle Chalmers.

“I was talking to David before the (final) race in the call room and the last thing he said to me was, ‘let's put on a show.’ So I think we definitely put on a show.”

Popovici won the final in the second fastest time ever at 46.51. Alexy won silver at 46.92 and Chalmers the bronze at 47.17.

Going from heats to semis to the final and delivering in round three had been a struggle in the past for Alexy, who credited his mental shift in delivering a silver medal in the final.

“I think the biggest change in the mental process and the hours and the days leading up to the race, just trying to focus on why I love the sport and just look back on how far I've come, rather than trying to focus on putting pressure on myself about, okay, ‘I need to go this time.’ So I think it's just really letting me swim free and just have fun in the sport that I've always loved.”

In the 50m freestyle, Alexy again found himself on the podium with bronze at 21.46. Again, he went faster in the semis, but he still won himself a medal behind two of the best to ever cross one length of the pool - Cameron McEvoy and Ben Proud.

All in all, Alexy had ten swims in the pool in Singapore, and came out with a medal in every single event he competed in across the eight-day programme.

The World Aquatics Championships presents a challenge for any athlete, let alone those that can race up to ten times across the week. The up and down emotions of every swim throughout the week can be emotionally draining, and if you’re not prepared, it can be detrimental.

Learning from those before him like Ryan Murphy, Caeleb Dressel, and Abbey Weitzeil, Alexy learned how to take one race at a time and not dwell too much on the good or bad swims.

“Meets like this when it’s eight days long and I have a busy schedule ahead of me, it’s pretty easy to get ahead of myself and think ‘wow I have eight, nine swims ahead of me. I need to get this done,’” Alexy said before the meet. “That’s not a good way to go about it and you’d get overwhelmed when you do that.

“It takes some practice and reps of doing that but it’s helpful because there’s a lot of more experienced people on Team USA I can look up to and ask questions and they’ve provided me with a lot of advice on how to handle a big workload like I have.”

Living up to Expectations

There was increased optimism for the United States team in the lead-up to the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. After a disappointing showing in the Paris Olympics that saw the team win two gold medals on the men’s side - one individual event and just one relay, including its first ever loss in the medley relay on the final night, the team was slated for a big showing in Singapore in the first international meet ahead of a home Olympics in 2028.

Alexy was leading that charge, leading the world rankings in the 100m freestyle before Popovici overtook him in late June. Luca Urlando was looking like the man he was promised to be in his stellar junior career as he led the 200m butterfly world rankings. Luke Hobson was swimming better than ever and was set to go toe to toe with Popovici in the 200m freestyle where a 1:42 didn’t look impossible. The team still had Bobby Finke, who won the only individual gold in the 1500m freestyle in 2024, and the duo of Shaine Casas and Carson Foster, who sat first and second in the world in the 200m IM. Rex Maurer was a promising upstart in the 400m freestyle and 400m IM, while the freestyle depth shown at the US Trials in June looked promising for a freestyle relay sweep at the World Championships.

“There’s not much talk about what happened last year,” Alexy said in this interview in the early days of the Thailand training camp. “I don’t think there’s any benefit to dwell on the past and this is coming from me personally and from what I’ve heard from my teammates here and the coaches here. We are focused right now on our training and preparation for Singapore and performance and realize that this is the first international showcase heading into the LA 2028 quad.”

Everything seemed to be going well. Until it didn’t.

Much had been said about the team’s battle with acute gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the intestines that leads to vomiting and diarrhea. Although it’s unclear which athletes were affected, it’s hard to ignore the impact the illness had on the team as a whole.

The US men won no relays and only one individual gold with Urlando’s 200m butterfly. But the results are still promising - Alexy’s 45 split and individual silver in the 100m speak for a reliable force on relays and individual events. Casas’s 1:54 in the 200m IM was a major breakthrough, as was Hobson’s silver in the 200m freestyle.

The relay performances, however, prove to be too much for American fans hoping to see their team on top. The team was run down by Australia in the 4x100m freestyle on the men’s and women’s sides, and missed the podium entirely in the men’s 4x200m. Both medley relays made the podium, including a world record from the women, but the mixed medley didn’t advance past the heats.

There was criticism, the loudest being from two of the greatest to ever put on swim caps - Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

The American team was hurt by the criticism, even if it wasn’t intended to be directed at the athletes. Alexy shouldered a lot of it when asked about it in the ending days of the meet.

"There definitely is a lot of pressure on USA swimmers, because in the past decades, there have been legends in our sport that have paved the way for us,” Alexy said after a world record setting mixed 4x100m freestyle. “It is a privilege to be in this position, and we're very grateful. I think a lot of people, a lot of swim fans, love the sport, and sometimes they're really critical, sometimes they're really supportive. So I think that's just sports fans in general. I don't think it's personal at all.

What comes out of the 2025 calendar year for the United States swim team remains to be seen, but the US has the pieces to be great in the future. Alexy has proven that and is motivated by 2025.

“The USA has a high standard of reach, and when we are considered not at that highest standard 100% of the time, we can definitely take some criticism for it,” Alexy said after the mixed free relay. “It's definitely fuel to the fire for the next couple years. And the theme going into this meet was setting off the tone right for LA 2028. So I think we're continuing to do a better job at that, especially after tonight, and I'm really excited for the future."