American swimmer Caeleb Dressel secured his first individual gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics with a wire-to-wire victory in the men's 100-meter freestyle final. Dressel recorded an Olympic record in the effort, finishing the race in 47:02 seconds.
Rounding out the podium were Australia's Kyle Chalmers and ROC's Kliment Kolesnikov.
Earlier, in the men's 800-meter final, American swimmer Bobby Finke surged ahead in the final 50 meters to win gold with a time of 7:41.87. Finke swam the final 50 in 26.39 seconds. With the win, Finke, who was in fourth heading into the final turn, became the first U.S. man to win an Olympic distance freestyle since 1984.
Regan Smith (silver, 2:05.30) and Hali Flickinger (bronze, 2:05.65) gave the U.S. its first medals in the women’s 200 butterfly since 2000. China’s Yufei Zhang set an Olympic record with a 2:03.86 en route to gold.
Dressel's journey to first individual Olympic gold
Nicole Auerbach, senior writer: One of the first things Dressel said after winning that race was how hard it's been the last year to get to this point. He grew very emotional as he saw his wife and parents celebrating from afar, not allowed to be in Tokyo with him because of the pandemic. The journey of an Olympic swimmer is often lonely. It's a lot of early mornings, a lot of time in a pool with just your own thoughts and the black line below you.
Dressel has been dominant in the pool essentially his whole life, from his time as an age-grouper to his decorated college career at Florida. He won six gold medals at 2019 Worlds, which doubled as a coming-out party for him.
Still, it's never easy to win an Olympic medal, and it's even harder when everyone expects you to do it. What a moment for Dressel, the new face of American men's swimming.
