Nine-time Olympic gold medalist caught watching Super Smash Bros clip compilation

United States swimming Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel was caught watching a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clips compilation YouTube video while cooling down after a race.

The 27-year-old Olympian has nine gold medals to his name, and one silver, since his debut on the Olympic stage in 2016. Dressel was caught watching Smash clips on his phone while taking an ice bath by the NBC broadcast on August 7.

The feed showed the swimmer watching through a video of what looked like LAN matches with player cameras and tournament overlays. He appeared to skip parts of the video, tapping the screen to fast forward ahead to watch just the combos and kills.

Smash fans immediately clocked the game on the Olympics broadcast, and went to social media to reveal the Olympian’s fandom.

“Watching the Olympics with my mom and CAELEB DRESSEL IS WATCHING YEET SMASH IN THE ICE BATH BETWEEN RACES,” the fan who spotted him said.

One response to the clip claimed Dressel is a Steve main, and that the swimmer often plays Smash against the other swim team members.

In a 2019 interview with People, Dressel said that the national team gets together at events and plays Nintendo games.

“A lot of Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, a few different card games, really just stuff so we can stay loose and get your mind off of swimming before going into the meet,” he told the magazine.

The clip even made its way to the Smash Bros. Reddit where players identified one of the matches he watched the highlight clip from, a year-old game played at an event at the University of British Columbia.

Dressel is one of the many athletes at the Olympics who have either directly referenced popular video games or anime at the Paris Games or shouted them out on social media.