T&T’s Dy­lan Carter re­turned to his gold­en best when he won the men's 50-me­tre freestyle fi­nal on the open­ing night of fi­nals at the third and fi­nal leg of the World Aquat­ics Swim­ming World Cup at the OCBC Aquat­ic Cen­ter in Sin­ga­pore on Thurs­day.

Carter won in a time of 21.06 sec­onds at the World Cup, which splashed off on Oc­to­ber 18 in Shang­hai, Chi­na, just ahead of USA's Jack Dolan (21.07) and Ger­many's Mar­ius Kusch (21.09) for his fourth win in the event's his­to­ry. He had three straight wins in 2022 en route to the over­all men's World Cup ti­tle. The 28-year-old Cal­i­for­nia-born Carter was eighth in the sec­ond leg in In­cheon, Ko­rea last week in 21.34.

How­ev­er, Carter, who had the sec­ond-fastest re­ac­tion time of 0.62 sec­onds, on­ly bet­tered by Hol­land's Ken­zo Si­mons' 0.60, was not to be de­nied this time around as he made his po­si­tion­ing in lane five for the eight-man fi­nal work to per­fec­tion and was nice­ly placed in the sec­ond spot at the 25m split with a time of 9.98 sec­onds, on­ly be­hind Kusch's time of 9.95 while Aus­tralian Isaac Coop­er was third in 10.05.

A three-time Olympian, as well as a three-time World Short Course Cham­pi­onship medal win­ner, Carter then turned on the burn­ers on the turn for home to have the fastest sec­ond-half split of 10.84 to the wall first in 20.82, the on­ly swim­mer un­der 21 sec­onds in the fi­nal, and just 0.12 off his 20.70 per­son­al best time set at the 2022 Short Course World Cham­pi­onships.

Aussie sprint­er Coop­er who had a sec­ond-half split of 10.96 moved up one spot in­to sec­ond in 21.01, slight­ly quick­er than his sil­ver medal-gar­ner­ing per­for­mance of 21.07 in In­cheon in mid-week while Kusch who clocked 11.09 over the sec­ond half of the race, third in 21.04 for his sec­ond bronze in the event af­ter a sim­i­lar fin­ish in Shang­hai.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Hol­land's Nyls Ko­rstan­je (21.12), USA's Jack Dolan (21.16), Si­mons (21.21), Es­ton­ian Ralf Tri­buntsov (21.23) and sec­ond-leg win­ner Ko­rea's Ji Yuchan in 21.28.

With the win, Carter im­proved to five gold medals at the World Cup in the men's 50m freestyle adding the first-leg vic­to­ry to his triple feat of win­ning three 50m freestyle, 50m back­stroke, and 50m but­ter­fly gold medals at three straight stops in Berlin, Ger­many; Toron­to, Cana­da; and In­di­anapo­lis, USA in 2022 to equal Olympic bronze medal win­ner George Bovell III's five gold medals at the World Cup in the same event, in­clu­sive of four in 2012 (Stock­holm, Swe­den); (Moscow, Rus­sia); (Bei­jing, Chi­na); and (Tokyo, Japan), and one in 2014 in Sin­ga­pore.

Carter will now tar­get Bovell III's next World Cup record mark of eight wins in one event af­ter the for­mer Auburn Uni­ver­si­ty swim­ming ace won eight 100m med­ley gold medals and one 200m med­ley gold among his 41 World Cup medals, which al­so fea­tured 20 sil­ver and eight bronze.

In the morn­ing heats Carter took the first heat six, post­ing a time of 20.96, best­ing Si­mons by near­ly half a sec­ond as the Ju­nior World Record hold­er stopped the clock in 21.41 as they clocked the sec­ond and eighth best times, re­spec­tive­ly.

The next heat saw Ko­rstan­je al­so go un­der 21.00 as the Dutch­man was out in sub 9.95 (the on­ly sub 10 split in the field) and closed in to hit the wall in 20.88, hold­ing off the fast-charg­ing Dolan who stopped the clock at 21.00, ahead of Aus­tralian Olympian Isaac Coop­er’s 21.18 while from the eighth and fi­nal heat Kusch won in 21.03, just inch­ing out Yuchan (21.07).

A for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Tro­jans stand­out swim­mer Carter will re­turn to the pool to con­test the 50m back­stroke, and 100m freestyle to­day.

In the 50m back­stroke, Carter starts in lane six of the fifth and fi­nal heat against Dolan, Coop­er, New Zealand's Jack Hendy, Croa­t­ian Niko­la Mil­jenic, Philip­pines Metin Mah­mu­to­glu, Kusch, South African Pieter Co­et­ze and home town en­trants Brien Lim, and Yi Chan.

In the 100m freestyle, he com­petes in the tenth of 11 heats al­so from lane six ver­sus Malaysia's Yin Chuen Lim, Aus­tralian Ed­ward Som­merville, New Zealand's Hugo Wrathall, Chi­na's Juner Chen, New Zealand's Carter Swift, Den­mark's Ras­mus Nick­elsen, Aussie duo Matthew Tem­ple and Jesse Cole­man and Sin­ga­pore's Sage Tan.

On Sat­ur­day, Carter is ex­pect­ed to close off with the 50m but­ter­fly on Sat­ur­day (No­vem­ber 2) ahead of his next ma­jor event, the World Aquat­ic Cham­pi­onship in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary, from De­cem­ber 10-15.

Walk­er makes World Cup bow in back­stroke

First in­to ac­tion in the third event on the open­ing day's sched­ule for T&T was Or­nel­la Walk­er of YM­CA Aqua War­riors was fifth in the fourth and fi­nal women's 50m back­stroke heat in 28.69, a new per­son­al best im­prov­ing on her 29.02 from 2021 for the 13th best time over­all.

The win­ner of her heat was USA's Re­gan Smith in the top qual­i­fy­ing mark at 26.01 with Aus­tralian Iona An­der­son next in 26.26, fol­lowed by Swe­den's Louise Hans­son (27.01) and New Zealand's Is­abelle Gib­son (28.05) with the sev­enth and 11th fastest times, re­spec­tive­ly.

A three-time CC­CAN bronze medal win­ner in the 200m back­stroke (2:27:02 mins), 100m back­stroke (1:03:83), and 50m back­stroke (29.67 secs), the To­ba­go-born Walk­er win­ner of five medals at the Pan Amer­i­can Age-Group Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship in 2022, will re­turn to the pool to­day (Fri­day) for the sec­ond of four 100m back­stroke heats against In­done­sia's Em­i­lie Made­line Ba­wono, USA's Kaitie Grimes and Bea­ta Nel­son, Aus­tralian Han­nah Jane Fred­er­icks and host swim­mers Ju­lia Yeo, Myra Li, Maile Sul­li­van, Mad­dy Har­ri­son and Char­lotte Ng.