NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter pock­et­ed the top prize of US$100,000 af­ter he fin­ished the three legs of the FI­NA World Cup Swim­ming Se­ries as the top-ranked swim­mer, edg­ing out USA’s Nick Fink for the top spot by 0.3 points when the cur­tain came down on the third and fi­nal stop at the In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Nata­to­ri­um in In­di­anapo­lis, USA on Sat­ur­day night.

In his fi­nal event, the men’s 50 me­tres but­ter­fly Carter won gold in 21.99 sec­onds, .01 sec­onds off his per­son­al best from the 2021 Short Course World Cham­pi­onship last De­cem­ber, and just .14 sec­onds be­hind the world record shared by Brazil’s Nicholas San­tos and Hun­gary’s Sze­baszt­ian Sz­abo.

He was still well ahead of South Africa’s Chad Le Clos who took the sec­ond spot in 22.27 while Ger­many’s Mar­ius Kusch took bronze in 22.46, just ahead of Cana­di­an 17-year-old Ilya Kharun’s 22.47 sec­onds.

Carter’s swim al­so marked a new US Open record, tak­ing down the pre­vi­ous mark of 22.06 sec­onds post­ed by Caeleb Dres­sel in 2019, and in the process, he earned 19.6 points to up his to­tal to 172.6, which beat out Nic Fink (172.3) and South African Chad le Clos (166.3) for the over­all crown.

Along with brag­ging rights, Carter took home US$142,000 from the In­di­anapo­lis, USA stop alone from his three Triple Crowns, $12,000 meet ti­tle, and $100,000 over­all crown.

On Fri­day night, Carter won the men’s 50 back­stroke swim to com­plete his sec­ond ‘Triple Crown’ in two days as he swam a mas­sive per­son­al best, rip­ping 22.72, the 11th best all-time, to un­der­cut his for­mer na­tion­al record of 22.94 sec­onds. The time was al­so a new US Open record, break­ing the record of Brazil­ian Guil­herme Gui­do which was set in 2019.

Sec­ond-placed fin­ish­er Ryan Mur­phy was the on­ly swim­mer be­sides Carter un­der 23 sec­onds af­ter he touched in 22.99 and his team­mate Justin Ress, who won gold in this event at the Long Course World Cham­pi­onships, took third in 23.07 sec­onds.

A day ear­li­er, when the third and fi­nal leg be­gan Carter made it three Triple Crown win­ners in a row with his vic­to­ry in the 50m freestyle in 20.71 with Aus­tralian Kyle Chalmers sec­ond in 20.81, and Ress, third in 21.23 sec­onds.

Com­ment­ing af­ter se­cur­ing his ninth gold medal af­ter sweep­ing the 50 me­tres freestyle, back­stroke, and but­ter­fly events on Sat­ur­day night Carter said, “I am so hap­py, I am over the moon.”

He said, “The pres­sure re­al­ly start­ed to mount this week­end, but I re­al­ly felt like I could do it. I think it is mas­sive for T&T.

“The Olympics and World Cham­pi­onship is about who is best on that day, but the World Cup is about who is bet­ter for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time. It is re­al­ly a phe­nom­e­nal feat of not just fast swim­ming, but en­durance. It is a big step for our sport in the Caribbean.”

Asked if he en­vi­sioned hav­ing so much suc­cess dur­ing the World Cup and win­ning nine of nine fi­nals, the Com­mon­wealth Games, and World Short Course medal win­ner replied, “It was a goal, but I can’t say I was ex­pect­ing it. “But I mean, I had a re­al­ly good meet run, so I’m re­al­ly, re­al­ly proud of that.”

With his fel­low podi­um fin­ish­ers on Sat­ur­day at his side, Carter added, “These are some of my best friends, Chad and Mar­ius here. Mar­ius and I lived to­geth­er pri­or to the Tokyo Olympics, so we’re re­al­ly, re­al­ly close. It’s so fun rac­ing these guys every night.”

Carter’s per­for­mance is the fastest in the world this year ahead of the 22.21 sec­onds post­ed by le Clos at the first stop of the World Cup in Berlin.

He said, “It is a mas­sive step for me. I have al­ways felt like I have had mas­sive po­ten­tial, but there was al­ways some­thing miss­ing. I came home af­ter this sum­mer and went to my lo­cal gym. The amount of peo­ple who asked me if I was go­ing to re­tire—I swam good times but peo­ple thought I was done, that I was nev­er go­ing to break through. That re­al­ly drove me and that is part of the re­sults you see here.”

Carter called his re­cent run of dom­i­nance in the 50s his ‘sec­ond ca­reer’ af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly spe­cial­is­ing in longer-dis­tance events.

“I have al­ways swam up to 200, but I al­ways want­ed to have a bit of a sec­ond ca­reer, which is the 50s,” he said. “I al­ways had a good 50 fly. It was al­ways good for a 200 guy. I want­ed to put it to­geth­er and see what I could do. Train­ing in Trinidad, I am train­ing on my own a lot. It’s fun. It is a lot more fun than train­ing for the 200. Swim­ming in a way that is sus­tain­able and when you are hap­py, that is when you can see your ca­reer in front of you.”

He is ex­pect­ed to re­turn home this week to com­pete in the Na­tion­al Short Course Age-Group Cham­pi­onship which splash­es off on Thurs­day at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Bal­main, Cou­va and run un­til Sun­day as part of his prepa­ra­tions for the FI­NA World Short Course Cham­pi­onships in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia from De­cem­ber 13 to 18, at the Mel­bourne Sports and Aquat­ic Cen­tre. The events will be con­test­ed in a 25-me­tre pool.