Simone Manuel and Caeleb Dressel set medal records at world swimming championships
Simone Manuel completed a sweep of the 50m and 100m freestyles at the world swimming championships on Sunday night, the first American woman to achieve the feat.
Manuel raced one length of the pool in 24.05 seconds to earn her third gold and fifth medal overall on the last night of the competition. She held off Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, who took silver in 24.07sec, and Australian Cate Campbell, who earned bronze in 24.11sec. In the 100m free, Manuel topped Campbell and Sjostrom finished third. Manuel’s other medals came in relays: gold in the mixed 4x100m free and silvers in the 4x100m free and 4x200m free.
Elsewhere, Manuel’s teammate Caeleb Dressel became the first man to win eight medals at a single swimming world championship. He helped USA to silver in the 4x100m medley relay, which was won by Great Britain. Dressel’s golds came in the 50m and 100m free, 50m and 100m butterfly, mixed 4x100m free relay and 4x100m free relay. His other silver was in the mixed 4x100m medley relay.
Lilly King won the 50m breaststroke, giving the American two victories over Russian rival Yuliya Efimova. They were denied a third meeting when King was disqualified in the heats of the 200m breaststroke for not putting both her hands on the wall at the same time in a turn. King touched in 29.84sec, the only swimmer under 30 seconds in the final. Benedetta Pilato, a 14-year-old Italian, earned a surprise silver in 30 seconds flat and was in tears after her medal. “I didn’t know if it was happy tears or sad tears,” King said. “She’s 14, it doesn’t really matter what kind of tears they were, but I was like, ‘It’s OK, you did fine.”’