Caeleb Dressel, a rising swimming star, goes for his first individual medal in the 100-meter freestyle.

The American swimmer Caeleb Dressel, 24, has three career relay golds in the Olympics but no individual wins. On Wednesday night he has a chance to change that in the 100-meter freestyle.

NBC Primetime will broadcast the event, which is set to start at 10:37 p.m. Eastern. (Because of the 13-hour time difference, the event takes place on Thursday morning in Japan.)

Dressel started swimming when he was 5, after his parents enrolled him in swim lessons — a decision he did not agree with at first, he said in a video interview on U.S.A. Swimming’s YouTube page.

But Dressel, who is from Green Cove Springs, Fla., eventually became laser-focused on swimming. By his mother’s telling, Dressel’s first “competition” came when he jumped in the pool during one of his siblings’ swim meets, raced his way to the other end and claimed, “I won a medal, I won a medal!”

It was the first unofficial accomplishment in his booming career: Dressel, who swam for the University of Florida, went on to sweep up 15 medals at world championships and set world and U.S. records.

At the 2019 FINA World Championship Games, Dressel broke his first long-course world record in the 100-meter butterfly, posting a time of 49.50 and shattering the previous record of 49.82 set by Michael Phelps.

Dressel made his Olympic debut at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, where he and his team won gold in the men’s 4×100 freestyle and in the 4×100 medley relays. At the Rio Games, Dressel placed sixth in the 100-meter freestyle.

He won his third Olympic gold with Team U.S.A. in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay at the Tokyo Games on Monday, but he has not yet won an individual Olympic gold.

Dressel, who has a tattoo of the Olympic rings on the inside of his right arm, hopes to change that in the 100-meter freestyle final, where he will face off against competitors from Australia, Italy, Hungary, Romania, South Korea, France and the Russian Olympic Committee.

“As soon as I get behind those blocks, I finally get to do what I was trained to do,” Dressel said in a U.S.A. Swimming video from 2016. “I finally get to be me.”