American swim star bags 100-meter gold

TOKYO — US star Caeleb Dressel said he was never worried as he blazed to his first individual Olympic gold medal in the men's 100m freestyle final yesterday, adding to his back-to-back world titles.

The 24-year-old powered to the wall in a new Olympic record time of 47.02 seconds to dethrone charging Australian defending champion Kyle Chalmers, who came second (47.08). Russia's Kliment Kolesnikov took the bronze in 47.44.

"It's been a really tough year, really hard. I'm really happy," he said in tears as he was connected via video link to his wife and family back home.

Dressel missed out on the individual medals at Rio in 2016, but he has since exploded, winning an incredible 13 titles over the past two world championships.

Despite the nailbiting finish, he said he was never concerned.

“I wasn't worried about anything,” he said. “During the race there's only so much you can do. Whatever's gonna happen is going to happen.

“I stuck to my race plan — if it got me first, OK, if it got me second OK. I wouldn't change a thing.”

Dressel went to the turn in front but had to dig deep to hold off Chalmers, needing to smash the previous Olympic record of 47.05 held by Australia's Eamon Sullivan since 2008. (AFP)