Caeleb Dressel went to the 2019 World Championships hoping to claim a neck full of gold. He did that — and made history that surpasses Michael Phelps’s achievements in the process.
Dressel won eight total medals — six gold, two silver — over eight days in Gwangju, South Korea, establishing a new record for medals at one World Championships and once again stamping himself as the logical heir to Phelps’s title as the best swimmer in the world.
The eight medals broke a four-way tie between Dressel, Phelps, Australia’s Michael Klim, and American legend Matt Biondi, all of whom had won seven medals at one World Championships.