The young American sprinter, fresh off a record-tying seven golds at worlds, could be in position to become the face of swimming at the Tokyo Olympics

Caeleb Dressel knew the comparisons were inevitable. The 20-year-old University of Florida student had barely toweled off after capturing his seventh gold medal at last week’s world aquatics championships when he found himself cast as the heir to Michael Phelps as the face of swimming in the United States and, potentially, the world.

Not only had the American sprinter become the first swimmer to win seven golds at a single worlds since Phelps in 2007, Dressel joined Phelps and Mark Spitz as the only swimmers to win seven titles at any long-course international championship.

Forget for a moment that neither Phelps or Spitz had the luxury of mixed relays (two of Dressel’s medals in Budapest came in mixed events). This was a star turn at the sport’s second-biggest competition after the Olympics. In one outrageous 98-minute span on Saturday, Dressel became the first swimmer ever to capture three golds in one night, doing the 50m freestyle-100m butterfly double and helping the US to victory in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay. He swam with striking consistency, set a handful of American records and was named the male swimmer of the meet.

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Now he’s managed to make headlines in a sport that, in the United States, seldom moves the needle in non-Olympic years. All of which invites comparisons to the most decorated Olympian of all time.

The thing is, Dressel doesn’t need to be the next Phelps, not after USA Swimming has already found it with one Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky. But the absence of America’s most familiar names from the pool deck last week in Hungary – among them Phelps (retired), Ryan Lochte (suspended) and Missy Franklin (injured) – underscored the transitional nature of the American camp with the Tokyo Olympics three years away.

Dressel had already been famous in swimming circles for years, smashing age-group records in the tiny northeast Florida town of Green Cove Springs as a junior, qualifying for the Olympic trials before his 16th birthday and drawing comparisons to famed sprinters Matt Biondi and Tom Jager. Even before last week’s breakthrough in Hungary, he’d already won a pair of Olympic golds and six individual NCAA titles at the University of Florida.

Since Phelps’ seven-gold performance at 2007 worlds served as a prelude to his epochal Beijing Olympics showcase, it’s natural to wonder if Dressel could threaten the all-time record of eight. The answer: unlikely. Two of the races on his Budapest schedule – the 50m butterfly and mixed 400m freestyle relay – aren’t on the Olympic programme. That means he will need to add new events to his schedule between now and then.

One possibility is the 200m freestyle, which could earn him medal shots in the 4x200m free relay (if he finishes sixth or better at the US trials) or the individual event (if he finishes first or second). That’s no certainty given the competition. Phelps, by comparison, added only the butterfly leg of the 400m medley relay between worlds and the Olympics.

But while he may lack Phelps’ versatility, Dressel’s speciality in the shorter, more exciting sprints is bound to make him a crowd-pleaser. That he could be a gold medal contender in several events, and thus headline multiple nights in prime time, will no doubt endear him to US rights holder NBC as they handpick athletes to be their faces of the Games. He looks the part too: a slender 6ft 1in, 185lb figure with tattoos of a bald eagle and the American flag on his shoulder and back, a tribute to his favorite Bible verse.

And because sprinters typically don’t hit their primes until their mid-20s, it’s possible he’s only shown glimpses of his full potential. Dressel admitted Saturday that he’s still getting used to international swimming, where the 50m pool length undercuts his most obvious difference-maker: the explosive flipturns that became his calling card at Florida, where he won a combined five NCAA titles in 50m and 100m freestyles in a 25-yard pool.

That said, for all Dressel has accomplished by 20, it’s instructive to recall Phelps had already won eight Olympic, 13 world championship and five Pan-Pacific medals by the same age, including 19 golds. Measuring up as the next Michael Phelps is futile exercise: no less a fool’s errand than a race between a man and a shark. For USA Swimming, just being the first Caeleb Dressel would be more than enough.