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Caeleb Dressel Is Leaving Tokyo With Five Olympic Gold Medals

By Merrit Kennedy
Published July 31, 2021 at 11:07 PM EDT
U.S. star Caeleb Dressel reacts after winning the gold medal and breaking the Olympic record in the men's 50 meter freestyle final at the Tokyo Olympics.
Al Bello
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Getty Images
U.S. star Caeleb Dressel reacts after winning the gold medal and breaking the Olympic record in the men's 50 meter freestyle final at the Tokyo Olympics.

TOKYO — U.S. star sprinter Caeleb Dressel is on a hot streak. He added two gold medals to his haul from the Tokyo Olympics, departing the Games with five golds.

Dressel and his teammates Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew and Zach Apple set a world record in the 4x100 meter medley relay.

Earlier today, Dressel touched the wall first in the 50 meter freestyle, setting an Olympic record in the shortest and fastest swimming distance with a time of 21.07.

The 50 meter free is a mad sprint — just one length of the pool. Swimmers don't even take a breath the entire way. Dressel exploded off the blocks and touched the wall first — nearly a half second before his closest competitor.

It's been an astonishingly successful Games for the 24-year-old from Florida, who came into it with a world record but no previous individual Olympic medals.

He also won individual gold in the 100 meter freestyle and the 100 meter butterfly, breaking his own world record. Earlier in the Games, he led off the gold-medal-winning team in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay.

NPR's Russell Lewis contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Merrit Kennedy
Merrit Kennedy is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers a broad range of issues, from the latest developments out of the Middle East to science research news.
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