GWANGJU • It was billed as one of the most highly anticipated matchups at the Fina World Championships, and the battle yesterday between Caeleb Dressel and Kyle Chalmers did not disappoint.
American Dressel came out on top in the tussle, retaining his men's 100m freestyle crown and his third gold medal of the week in Gwangju, South Korea.
The 22-year-old, who swept to seven world titles two years ago, clocked a blistering 46.96 seconds - just 0.05sec off Cesar Cielo's world record - to win swimming's blue riband event in the second fastest time ever, with Olympic champion Chalmers taking silver.
Dressel high-fived Chalmers before perching himself on the lane rope as he milked the applause, raising a fist to flag-waving American fans.
Afterwards, the American had only praise for his Australian rival.
"I consider him a better 100m freestyler, I look up to him in that aspect," Dressel said on the Olympic Channel.
On the race, he said: "It hurt, it hurt really bad, to be honest. You don't get that magical feeling every night - you've just got to shut the brain off and go."
Chalmers touched in 47.08sec with Russia's Vladislav Grinev the best of the rest in 47.82sec.
Rio gold medallist Chalmers came into the world championships on fire, but Dressel exploded from the blocks and was half a body length in front at the turn.
Chalmers tried to fight back but Dressel had too much of a lead and the tattooed pin-up romped home to claim his fourth medal of the week.
"I kind of had that dive and he is an unbelievable starter," Chalmers said, as reported by The Australian newspaper.
"I could see he had that half body length to a body length on me. It was kind of a chase for me for the rest of the race."
"I gave it my absolute all tonight, 47.0 is a very quick time. I couldn't really believe it when I saw that and to see Caeleb go 46.9 is absolutely mind blowing."
While Chalmers missed out on gold, the Australian women set a world record of 7min 41.50sec in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
The quartet of Ariarne Titmus, Madison Wilson, Brianna Throssell and Emma McKeon shaved 0.58sec off the previous mark set by China at the Rome world meet in 2009. The United States (7:41.87) took silver and Canada (7:44.35) the bronze.
American star Katie Ledecky returned from illness and raced for the first time since Monday but had to settle for silver behind the Australians.
The other individual titles yesterday went to Hungary's Borglarka Kapas in the 200m butterfly, American Olivia Smoliga in the 50m backstroke and Japan's Daiya Seto in the 200m individual medley.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, DPA
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Swimming heats/finals
StarHub Ch202, 8.45am & 6.45pm
