Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian will have a chance to defend his 100 freestyle gold after winning the event at the U.S. Olympic Swim trials Thursday evening in Omaha, Nebraska.
Nathan was behind California teammate Anthony Ervin at the 50 split, but gained ground quickly and went ahead to touch the wall first in 47.72, just .20 seconds off his winning time at London in 2012.
“It means everything,” Nathan said during a post-race online interview. “We put in four years of really hard work (and) thankfully the jitters are over. We punched our tickets right there.”
Caeleb Dressel finished second in 48.23. The top remaining four finishers will be added to the team as USA Swimming takes six total to fill out all the relay teams. Those finishers include a lot of first-time Olympians.
“I’ve been saying it for a whole year,” Nathan said. “People have underestimated how good American sprinting is. With another month of rest, I think we’ll just be a little bit faster and ready to race.”
Once the trials are completed, the U.S. team will head to San Antonio for training camp beginning July 13 before eventually heading to Atlanta and then Rio.
