While the USA Men’s Olympic swimming team has not had a sweep of medals in Tokyo, Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke have brought home some gold.
Dressel claimed the first individual Olympic gold medal of his career with two furious laps of the pool Thursday morning, winning the 100-meter freestyle over defending champion Kyle Chalmers.
Dressel’s winning time was an Olympic record of 47.02 seconds, a mere six-hundredths of a second ahead of Chalmers, who earned a silver medal at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
His latest gold medal comes three days after Dressel, along with teammates Blake Pieroni, Bowen Becker and Zach Apple, placed first in the 4x100m freestyle relay on Monday with a time of 3:08.97. Just 1.14 seconds behind the Americans was Italy and 1.25 seconds behind was third-place finisher Australia.
His teammate, Bobby Finke, was a surprise winner in the first-ever 800-meter freestyle race at the Olympics.
He was in fifth place for most of the 16 lap race. Then, he surged from behind in the final 50-meter stretch.
“I noticed 10 meters out I was catching up a little bit of ground and that was the only motivation I needed to try and pass and get my hand to the wall first,” he said after the race.
The 21-year-old from the University of Florida made up almost a second and a half – which might as well be a lifetime – to blast past the other swimmers and win the race in a thrilling finish.
Launch the gallery above to see more photos of Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke.
