Americans Huske, Dressel power to butterfly golds at world championships

BUDAPEST: American Torri Huske narrowly missed out on a world record in the women's 100m butterfly at the swimming world championships in Budapest on Sunday (Jun 19) while her compatriot and seven-times Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel won the 50m butterfly.

Huske was ahead of the world record time in the final 50m but eventually finished with a time of 55.64 seconds - just 0.16 seconds shy.

The 19-year-old finished half a second ahead of France's Marie Wattel who took silver while China's Zhang Yufei took the bronze.

"I'm so happy, this is an amazing field of women and I'm just very lucky to be here. I don't know how to put this into words, but I just want to thank my coaches and family back home," Huske said.

"It's helped (my confidence) a little bit but I still have a lot of races to focus on."

The medal was her second at the championships after helping the US team win the women's 4x100m freestyle relay on Saturday.

Dressel, who led the US to the 4x100m freestyle gold on Saturday, powered to victory in the 50m butterfly on the back of a brilliant start, carrying that momentum all the way to the finish with a time of 22.57 seconds.

"It wasn't a perfect race but certainly a fun one, really happy to get that first individual race over and done with," he said.

"I definitely had the jitters today, especially in my hotel room, that's when it's the worst. But once I'm on the blocks that's as safe as I feel."

He pipped his rivals in a tight race where Brazil's Nicholas Santos took the silver while American Michael Andrew came third after finishing 0.01 seconds behind Santos.

Santos, 42, also became the first swimmer to claim a medal at the world championships after his 40th birthday.

In the final race of the day, Alex Walsh gave