Nigel Si­mon

Cal­i­for­nia-based T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter es­tab­lished a new record in the 15-17 boys' 200-me­tres but­ter­fly at the Are­na Grand Prix Se­ries San­ta Clara.

The event was held at the George F Haines In­ter­na­tion­al Swim Cen­tre, north­ern Cal­i­for­nia, on the week­end.

Com­pet­ing on Fri­day's sec­ond day of com­pe­ti­tion, the 17-year-old Carter failed to get to the A-Fi­nals of ei­ther the 100m freestyle or the 100m but­ter­fly events he con­test­ed.

In the morn­ing heats, Carter was 20th best in the 100m freestyle in 51.25 sec­onds and fol­lowed it up with a sec­ond-place fin­ish in the C-Fi­nal in 51.15, to trail Justin Glan­da (51.04).

He was 38th over­all in the morn­ing heats for the 100m but­ter­fly in 56.04 and re­turned to the pool in the af­ter­noon ses­sion for an eighth-place swim in the D-Fi­nal in 57.56.

Carter, who has ver­bal­ly com­mit­ted to at­tend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (USC) from Jan­u­ary next year, was back in ac­tion on Sat­ur­day and had a much bet­ter show­ing in the 200m freestyle where he end­ed 19th in 1:51.88, the same as Dan Mad­wed, pri­or to top­ping the B-Fi­nal in 1:51.35 ahead of Blake Wors­ley (1:51.45) and his soon to be USC Tro­jans team­mate Michael Do­ma­gala (1:51.53).

In his oth­er event on Sat­ur­day, the 200m back­stroke, Carter of the Davie Nadadores club was a dis­ap­point­ing 49th in 2:13.91.

A day lat­er, he was 44th in the 200m but­ter­fly in 2:09.44, a new na­tion­al mark in the 15-17 boys age-group

He fared bet­ter in the 100m back­stroke, how­ev­er, with a 23rd-spot fin­ish in the heats in 58.61, fol­lowed by his top spot in the C-Fi­nal in 58.14 ahead of Math­ew My­er (58.15) and En-Wei Hu-Van Wright (58.49).

T&T's Olympic and World Short Course Cham­pi­onships bronze medal swim­mer George Bovell was al­so ex­pect­ed to com­pete at the San­ta Clara Grand Prix, how­ev­er, there was a mix up with the en­tries and he was a day late and not al­lowed to com­pete.

The 29-year-old T&T swim­mer splashed off his sea­son with vic­to­ry in the TYR Jax50 freestyle at the Bolles School Vi­ble Pool, San Jose Boule­vard, Jack­sonville, Flori­da, in April and was hope­ful of get­ting in some com­pet­i­tive ac­tion be­fore head­ing over to Eu­rope.

Bovell, who re­cent­ly re­turned from an ini­tia­tive against Malar­ia and Drown­ing in Ugan­da, will now fo­cus on the Tro­pheo Set­ti Coli in Italy, Rome, from June 13-15 fol­lowed by the Cana­da Cup (June 28-30), the French Open in Vichy (Ju­ly 6-7) and then the FI­NA World Long Course Cham­pi­onships from Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 4.

At the con­clu­sion of the World Cham­pi­onship, he is ex­pect­ed to turn his at­ten­tion to the FI­NA World Cup which starts with an Au­gust 7-8 meet in Eind­hoven, Hol­land fol­lowed by Berlin, Ger­many, Sep­tem­ber 10-11.

The re­main­ing six stops will con­tin­ue in Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber, but Bovell, who won a com­bine 16 medals on the World Cup cir­cuit last year to end in sec­ond spot over­all, says he may not par­tic­i­pate in those as it was deemed too hard to con­tin­ue through all eight like last year.