T&T two-time Olympic swim­mer Dy­lan Carter swam to the gold medal in the men’s 50m freestyle Su­per Fi­nal on the first day of the in­au­gur­al 2023 AP Race In­ter­na­tion­al Long Course (50m) Meet be­fore 1500 spec­ta­tors at the Lon­don Aquat­ic Cen­ter, Lon­don, Eng­land on Sat­ur­day.

The meet has the full back­ing of British Swim­ming and has been ap­proved by World Aquat­ics for ath­letes to qual­i­fy A and B times for the World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships, Fukuo­ka 2023, in Ju­ly, should their na­tion’s se­lec­tion pol­i­cy al­low.

Carter, 27, the win­ner of four medals in six events at the just con­clud­ed three legs of the 2023 Mare Nos­trum Tour in Canet, France; Barcelona, Spain, and Mona­co, raced to vic­to­ry in the ten-man Su­per Fi­nal field in 22.24 sec­onds to beat British Olympian Matt Richards who se­cured sil­ver in 22.35 and New Zealand’s Carter Swift who clocked 22.81 for third to the wall.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were host swim­mers. Ja­cob Whit­tle (22.85), Alex Co­hoon (22.88), Mada­gas­car’s Bryan Leong (23.07), Ger­many’s Se­bas­t­ian Pierre-Louis (23.12), and the home­town trio of Mad­dox Roberts (23.54), Jef­frey Lo (23.63), and Michael Rip­per in 23.79.

In the pre­lim­i­nary heats, Carter the nine-time gold medal win­ner over three legs of the FI­NA World Cup Se­ries last year to be the over­all men’s cham­pi­on was al­so the top qual­i­fi­er in 22.23 sec­onds in win­ning the tenth and fi­nal heat ahead of Co­hoon (23.00), the fourth fastest qual­i­fi­er from the field, Leong (23.22), the sixth best, and Rip­per who was the tenth and fi­nal qual­i­fi­er to the A-fi­nal in 23.86.

The oth­ers to book their spots in the fi­nal were Richards, who won Heat nine with the sec­ond-best time of 22.52, along with run­ner-up Swift (22.93) and Lo, the ninth fastest in 23.71 while Whit­tle won heat eight in the fifth fastest time of 23.01 and was joined from his heat by Pierre-Louis (23.34), and Roberts (23.67).

Fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day’s tri­umph, Carter re­turned to the pool on Sun­day but he had to set­tle for the bronze medal in the men’s 100m freestyle Su­per Fi­nal in 48.65 sec­onds to fin­ish be­hind 20m freestyle Olympic cham­pi­on Richards, who won in 48.17, and his fel­low Great Britain Olympic cham­pi­on, Tom Dean, who took sil­ver in 48.35.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were an­oth­er Great Britain Olympic medal win­ner Ja­cob Whit­tle in 49.07, Swift (49.70), El­liot Clogg (50.26), Co­hoon (50.56), Pierre-Louis (50.79), and Rip­per, ninth in 51.92 with Nicholas Finch fail­ing to face the starter. Ear­li­er in the morn­ing heats of the 100m freestyle, the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia grad­u­ate, Carter was a com­fort­able win­ner of the sixth of eight heats in 49.41 to beat Co­hoon (50.42), and Rip­per (51.17) in­to sec­ond and third spots re­spec­tive­ly while al­so se­cur­ing the best qual­i­fy­ing be­hind Dean who topped heat eight in 49.09, fol­lowed by fel­low A-fi­nals qual­i­fiers, Richards (49.46), and Pierre-Louis (50.99) who end­ed third and ninth best in the heats.

The quar­tet of Whit­tle (49.97), Swift (50.00), Clogg (50.70), and Finch (51.70) qual­i­fied as the fourth, fifth, sev­enth, and tenth fastest qual­i­fiers over­all to the fi­nals.

To­day, Carter will face the starter in the sixth and fi­nal men’s 50m but­ter­fly heats in lane four against Ethan Sop­pett-Moss, Calvin Georges­cu-Spiers, Den­mark’s Mar­tin Abel, Pierre-Louis, Tom­my Goldup, Switzer­land’s Mirko Ra­do, and Max Hig­gins.Last week, Carter fin­ished ninth over­all on the men’s point ta­ble af­ter the three stops which in­clud­ed the 35th edi­tion of the Canet-En-Rous­sil­lon, France: the 44th In­ter­na­tion­al Swim­ming of the City of Barcelona, at the Club Nat­ación Sant An­dreu and then the fi­nal leg in Mona­co.

Over­all, Carter used the meets as part of his prepa­ra­tions for next month’s Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Sal­vador, June 19 to Ju­ly 8, and the FI­NA World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships in Fukuo­ka, Japan from Ju­ly 14-30, won a com­bined four medals, two gold and two bronze from his six events con­test­ed.

In Canet, Carter won gold in the 100m freestyle in 48.84 sec­onds af­ter touch­ing the wall in 49.27 in the heats, while he al­so swam to the gold medal in the 50m but­ter­fly in 23.36 sec­onds, a tenth off his sea­son-best 23.25 from March’s Pro Swim Se­ries stop in Fort Laud­erdale, and af­ter his 23.73-splash in the heats.

The T&T swim­mer ear­li­er won the bronze medal in the men’s 50m freestyle in 22.25 sec­onds, fol­low­ing a 22.63 swim in the heats, and he al­so got bronze in Barcelona in the 100m freestyle in 49.09 sec­onds, af­ter his 49.23 clock­ing in the heats, while he was fourth in the 50m but­ter­fly in 22.27, to im­prove on his 22.41 tim­ing in the heats.

In his lone event in Mona­co, the 50m but­ter­fly, con­test via the skins for­mat, Carter was fourth best in 23.30.

Us­ing his best times based on the FI­NA World Aquat­ic Points Rank­ings, Carter earned 877 points for his 100m freestyle swim in Canet, 869 points for his time of 49.09 in the same 100m freestyle event in Barcelona, and 873 points af­ter his 23.30 time at­tained in the 50m but­ter­fly in Mona­co for an over­all tal­ly of 2,619 points.