US swimmer Dressel claims 100m freestyle gold

America’s Caeleb Dressel after winning the 100m freestyle gold yesterday. Pic/AFP

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 on Thursday, adding to his back-to-back world titles.

Dressel, 24, powered to the wall in a new Olympic record time of 47.02sec 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 nail-biting 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."

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