Dawn Fraser
Caeleb Dressel
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Caeleb Dressel leads 2 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Dawn Fraser at #5 and Caeleb Dressel at #6.
The case for Dawn Fraser
The pioneering queen of sprint freestyle and one of the toughest competitors in the sport's history. Fraser became the first swimmer, male or female, to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics, taking the 100m freestyle at Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964. In 1962 she became the first woman to break 60 seconds for the 100m freestyle, and she set 27 individual world records across her career. She won eight Olympic medals (four gold, four silver) in an amateur era before the World Championships existed. Fierce and unruly, she was controversially banned for ten years after a flag-stealing prank in Tokyo, cutting short a career that might otherwise have yielded even more. Her three-in-a-row remains a landmark of durability.
The case for Caeleb Dressel
The sprint-butterfly heir to Phelps and one of the most explosive swimmers ever. Dressel won eight Olympic gold medals through Paris 2024, including a five-gold haul at Tokyo 2020 across the 50m and 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly and both American relays. He holds the 100m butterfly world record (49.45) and has been part of numerous world-record relays. At the 2017 Budapest World Championships he matched a single-meet record with seven gold medals, and across his career he has accumulated around 15 world-championship titles. Renowned for enormous power, a ferocious start and underwater speed, Dressel is the defining sprinter of the textile-suit era, though a mental-health break and a tougher Paris meet showed the toll of racing at the extreme.