TOKYO, Japan — The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
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Living up to the hype, American swimmer Caeleb Dressel has claimed the first individual Olympic gold medal of his career.
Dressel held off the defending Olympic champion, Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, with a furious sprint to the wall. The winning time was an Olympic record of 47.02 seconds.
Dressel beat Chalmers by a mere six-hundredths of a second, leaving the 2016 winner with a silver medal this time. The bronze was claimed by Russia’s Kliment Kolesenikov.
The first three gold medals of Dressel’s career were all in the relays.
Now, he’s got one earned all by himself.
Dressel was emotional when it was all over.
"It's a really tough year. It's really hard. So to have the results show up, it really came together. So, I'm happy," Dressel said minutes after the race, fighting back tears.
Bobby Finke of the United States has captured gold in the debut of the men’s 800-meter swimming freestyle event at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri grabbed the silver after leading most of the race, while the bronze went to Mykhailo Romachuk of Ukraine.
It was a thrilling finish. Germany’s Florian Wellbrock grabbed the lead from Paltrinieri on the final flip, with Finke lurking back in fourth. But the American turned on a dazzling burst of speed at the end of the 16-lap race, passing all three swimmers ahead of him to take the gold.
Finke’s winning time was 7 minutes, 41.87 seconds, just 0.24 ahead of Paltrinieri. Romachuk finished in 7:42.33, knocking Wellbrock back to fourth.
The men’s 800 freestyle was added to the Olympic program for the Tokyo Games, marking the first time that approximate distance was contested by the men since there was an 880-yard race at the 1904 St. Louis Games.
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China has surprised the U.S. and Australia with a world-record performance in the women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay.
Katie Ledecky took the anchor leg for the Americans in third place, nearly 2 seconds behind the Chinese and also trailing the Aussies.
Ledecky passed Australia’s Leah Neale and closed the gap significant on China’s Li Bingjie, but couldn’t quite catch her at the end.
Li touched in 7 minutes, 40.33 seconds, denying both Ledecky and Ariarne Titmus another gold medal. After winning both the 200 and 400 free individual titles, Titmus led off for Australia in the relay.
The Americans claimed silver in 7:40.73, while Australia took the bronze in 7:41.29. It was the second 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.
China's Zhang Yufei turned in a dominating performance to win the women’s 200-meter butterfly with an Olympic-record time of 2 minutes, 3.86 seconds. She was more than a body length ahead of the pair of Americans, Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger.
The U.S. swimmers dueled back and forth for the silver, with Smith pulling ahead at the end to touch in 2:05.30. Flickinger earned the bronze in 2:05.65.
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Izaac Stubblety-Cook of Australia has won the 200-meter breaststroke at the Olympic pool in Tokyo.
Stubblety-Cook rallied on the final lap to pass Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands, who went out fast and tried to hold on. The winning time was an Olympic record of 2 minutes, 6.38 seconds as the Aussies captured their fifth gold of the swimming competition, matching the powerful American team.
Kamminga was under world-record pace through the first 150 meters, but he faded to the silver in 2:07.01. The bronze went to Finland’s Matti Mattsson in 2:07.24.
American Nic Fink finished fifth.
Travis Pittman contributed to this report.