Justin Lynch is faster than Michael Phelps at 16

USATODAY

INDIANAPOLIS – On Thursday night at the world championship trials, 16-year-old Justin Lynch beat 16-year-old Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly.

Lynch set the 15-16 U.S. national age-group record with a time of 52.75 seconds, beating Phelps' 2001 age-group mark of 52.98. Lynch won the consolation final in the event that the most decorated Olympian of all time dominated for so long.

In the first national championships without Phelps since 1998, his absence and perhaps comeback for the 2016 Games was a continual topic of conversation. How big is the void? Eugene Godsoe, who's 27 and has never made the Olympic team, won the 100 fly in 52.13, beating Ryan Lochte.

Lynch, who's from Vallejo, Calif., and competes for the Terrapins Swim Team in Concord, Calif., got into swimming after his older sister, Kaitlyn, started taking lessons. Kaitlyn is now a standout swimmer for Pace University.

Another prodigy was watching when Lynch touched the wall. "That says so much beating one of Phelps' records. I know he's going to keep it up," Missy Franklin said. "It's incredible to see how far swimming is coming. After 2009 and after that big suit era, people were saying these records aren't going to be broken for years and years and years. And I think that kind of really pushed us and we were like, really? OK. It really set a bar for us.

"Swimmers are so motivated and now these records are falling, and it's so exciting to watch."

Lynch said his goal is to come back to nationals, win the event and aim for the 2016 Olympics. Could he imagine being a teammate of Phelps in 2016? "No, I cannot," he said. As for breaking a record once held by the legend himself?

"It sounds cool."

Like many young swimming stars, Lynch is frequently asked if he's the next Michael Phelps. His response? There's only one Michael Phelps.

In a sport always looking for the next young star, it's too soon to put any labels on Lynch. His coach Paul Stafford called the performance significant because Lynch realized that he can compete with swimmers five, six, seven years older than him. "It's the first time he hasn't acquiesced to them," Stafford said. "He realized he belongs. He's got all the tools to continue to get better."