TOKYO -- Caeleb Dressel delivered in an Olympics where many favorites had failed to perform.Dressel won the 100-meter freestyle by winning the Olympic gold medal for individual athletes with two fast laps in the pool. He beat Kyle Chalmers, the defending champion, to claim the first Olympic gold medal for his career.Dressel dived into the pool to take the lead, as is his usual style. Dressel was still ahead at the last flip and rejected the Aussie's offer for a second consecutive gold.Dressel won the race in 47.02 seconds. This was just six-hundredths ahead of Chalmers who had to settle with a silver.Caeleb Dressel won men's 100-meter freestyle in 47.02 seconds. This is an Olympic record. Photo by Clive Rose/Getty ImagesRussia's Kliment Koleskikov (47.44), who claimed the bronze after adding to his silver in 100 backstroke.Dressel won his first three gold medals in relays. He received two in Rio de Janeiro and another in the 4x100 free relay at Tokyo Games.Dressel now has one for himself.He looked at the lane rope with astonishment and held the index finger of each hand up to the ceiling. He was indeed number 1.Dressel's gold was second for Americans in the morning, and Bobby Finke won a surprise victory in the Olympic debut of men's 800 free.Gold medals were also won by Izaac Stubby-Cook from Australia in the 200 breaststroke men's and Zhang Yufei of China in the 200 butterfly women's.Finke won the race with a stunning display of speed on the final lap. Germany's Florian Webrock took the lead from Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri in the final flip. Finke was still fourth.The American swimmer, however, was able to turn on the speed and win the 16-lap race. He passed all three of his competitors to take the gold.Finke stated, "I didn't know I was going to do this." "I noticed that I was catching some ground 10 meters away from the final turn, and that was all I needed to motivate myself."Finke won in 7 minutes 41.87 seconds. This was 0.24 behind Paltrinieri. Mykhailo Romanchuk, Ukraine, touched the bronze in 7:42.33 seconds to knock Wellbrock back to fourth.Finke swam for six seconds less than his personal best to win a historic gold medal.He didn't think about the pain until the moment he touched it.Finke stated that "your mind just kinda disappears and you're blocking out the end."The Olympic program included the 800-meter freestyle for men. This was the first time since the 1904 St. Louis Games, when the distance was 880 yards.Stubblety Cook finished in the same place as Finke, but over a shorter distance. Stubblety Cook rallied to pass Arno kamminga from the Netherlands on the final lap.The Olympic record time of 2:06.38 was the winning time. This gave Down Under the fifth gold medal in swimming competitions.Dressel's win pushed the Americans past the Aussies, who had six golds in Tokyo. They were also the top medalists overall with 20.Kamminga ran at a world-record pace for the first 150 metres, but he lost the silver in 2:07.01. In 2:07.24, Matti Mattsson of Finland won the bronze.American Nic Fink placed fifth.Zhang put in a dominant performance to win China's first gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly for women. Regan Smith and Hali FLICKING, who are both from the United States, set an Olympic record time of 2:03.86. Zhang was more than a length ahead of them.Smith won the silver in 2:05.30, while Smith was second at the finish. Flickinger won the bronze in 2:05.65.Katie Ledecky, who was competing for another gold in 4x200 free relay, was expected to be facing Ariarne Titmus, an Australian woman's team, and a huge challenge.
