Caeleb Dressel wins 50 free at Olympic Trials. At 27, he is America's fastest swimmer

INDIANAPOLIS — Caeleb Dressel proved he’s once again the fastest swimmer in America right now after winning Friday night’s men’s 50-meter freestyle final at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Lucas Oil Stadium.

With a time of 21.41 — .20 seconds faster than his semifinal Thursday — Dressel out-touched Chris Guiliano, who finished second with a time of 21.69. The pair should swim the individual event at the Paris Olympics. 

Dressel, the 50 free American record holder, is now guaranteed to swim an individual event in Paris after finishing third and just missing out in the 100-meter freestyle Wednesday, behind winner and first-time Olympian Guiliano. However, Dressel is still expected to be on the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay, along with Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong and Jack Alexy, who finished fourth in the 50 free final.

Dressel, the 27-year-old swimmer and seven-time Olympic gold medalist, also has a chance to qualify individually in the 100-meter butterfly with the semifinals later Friday. This will be his third Olympic Games.

The 50 free is an all-out, don’t breathe kind of race that’s built on raw power. And this one was so close with all eight swimmers in the final qualifying within .30 seconds of each other in the latter half of the 21-second range. In Friday’s final, the difference between first and eighth was .67 seconds.

Michael Andrew — who finished fourth in the 50 free at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics — finished fifth.