Dressel win three titles in one night at worlds

GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA >> Caeleb Dressel made history — again — at the world swimming championships.

The American won three gold medals in a span of about two hours July 27 night, duplicating his feat from two years ago in Budapest, Hungary.

Dressel has six golds and seven medals overall with one night remaining in the meet. He tied Michael Phelps’ record of seven medals — all gold — at a single worlds in 2017.

“It was not easy in ‘17, it was not easy this year,” the 22-year-old Floridian said. “I don’t want it to be easy, I really don’t.”

He capped his momentous night by leading off the victorious mixed 4x100-meter freestyle relay. Dressel joined Zach Apple, Mallory Comerford and Simone Manuel in setting a world record of 3 minutes, 19.40 seconds.

That lowered the mark of 3:19.60 set by the U.S. in 2017.

Manuel dueled with Australian anchor Bronte Campbell over the final 50. The American clocked 52 seconds to Campbell’s 52.36 to keep Dressel golden.

“I had a lot of help on that relay,” he said, pointing out that his 100 split of 47.34 would only have been good enough for bronze in the individual event. “Every time I do a race I always look for the bad.” There wasn’t much to criticize on this night.

Dressel opened the evening with a win in the 50 free to complete a 50-100 free sweep. He touched in 21.04 seconds, bettering the championship record of 21.08 set by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo at the 2009 worlds in Rome during the height of the rubber suit era.

Bruno Fratus of Brazil and Kristian Gkolomeev of Greece tied for silver in 21.45.

Coming back just 34 minutes later, Dressel won the 100 fly in 49.66 a night after breaking Phelps’ world record in the semifinals.

“Caeleb was amazing,” said South Africa’s Chad le Clos, the bronze medalist in the fly.