Swimmer Caeleb Dressel wins men's 100-meter freestyle; Bobby Finke takes gold in 800 free

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 in swimming over defending champion Kyle Chalmers.

He was still ahead at the lone flip and turned away the Aussie's bid for a second straight gold.

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.

The bronze was claimed by Russian Olympic Committee swimmer Kliment Kolesnikov (47.44), who added to his silver in the 100 backstroke.

The first three gold medals of Dressel's career were all in the relays: two in Rio de Janeiro, another in the 4x100 free relay at the Tokyo Games.

Now, Dressel has earned a gold all by himself.

Dressel's gold was the second of the morning for the Americans, who got a surprise victory from Bobby Finke in the Olympic debut of the men's 800 free.

Finke's winning time was 7 minutes, 41.87 seconds, just 0.24 ahead of Paltrinieri.

The men's 800 freestyle was added to the Olympic program for these games, marking the first time that approximate distance was contested by the men since there was an 880-yard race at the 1904 St.

The winning time was an Olympic record of 2:06.38, giving the team from Down Under its fifth gold of the swimming competition -- and its first men's breaststroke gold since Ian O'Brien at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Dressel's victory pulled the Americans ahead of the Aussies with six golds in Tokyo.

Zhang turned in a dominating performance to win China's first swimming gold of these games in the women's 200-meter butterfly.

It was the first swimming world record of the Tokyo Games -- in fact, all three medalists broke the previous mark of 7:41.50 set by the Aussies at the 2019 world championships