Dressel and Ledecky romp to wins at US Olympic trials

OMAHA: World record-holder Caeleb Dressel will try to add 100m buterfly Olympic gold to his two world titles ater a victory on Saturday at the US Olympic swimming trials.

Dressel, who clocked the world record of 49.50 at the 2019 World Championships, led wire-to-wire on the way to victory in 49.87sec.

That was a shade off his semi-final time of 49.76, but easily enough for victory over Tom Shields, a 2016 Rio Olympics relay gold medallist who was second in 51.19.

Dressel, who won two relay golds in Rio but finished sixth in the 100m freestyle, has since emerged as a multi-event star, winning a record eight medals, six gold, at the 2019 worlds.

He had already punched his ticket to Tokyo in the 100m freestyle, and later Saturday topped the semi-final times in the 50m free ahead of Michael Andrew and 2012 100m free gold medallist Nathan Adrian.

“The goal of this meet is making the team,” Dressel said.

Katie Ledecky echoed that sentiment ater completing her qualifying campaign with another dominant victory in the 800m freestyle, her time of 8:14.62 puting her more than five seconds ahead of surprise second-place finisher Katie Grimes.

The time was nothing spectacular for Ledecky, who owns the world record of 8:04.79 and in fact the top 10 times of all time.

But the five-time Olympic gold medallist said she wasn’t too concerned about times coming out of the eight-day trials in which she qualified to swim the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyles in Tokyo.

“I think we feel prety good coming out of this week, mission accomplished,” Ledecky said. “You can’t really take that for granted.”

The 15-year-old Grimes was impressive in taking second place in a career best 8:20.36, running down open water Olympian Haley Anderson on the final lap.

BACKSTROKE SHOCKER: It was an upset in the women’s 200m backstroke, as Rhyan White and 18-year-old Phoebe Bacon finished one-two to shut world record-holder Regan Smith out of a 200m spot in Tokyo.

White, 21, had already punched her ticket to Tokyo with a runner-up finish to Smith in the 100m back.

She won the 200m in 2:05.73sec while Bacon, an 18-year-old University of Wisconsin standout, was second in 2:06.46.