T&T’s Dy­lan Carter set a new na­tion­al record but just missed out on a medal when he placed fourth in the men's 50 me­tres but­ter­fly fi­nal on the sec­ond day of the FI­NA World Long Course Cham­pi­onships at the Duna Are­na in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary on Sun­day.

In the eight-man gold medal swim, the 26-year-old Carter, a sil­ver medal­list for T&T in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly at the FI­NA World Short Course Cham­pi­onship last De­cem­ber in Abu Dhabi, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and bronze in the same event in Chi­na in 2018, touched the wall in 22.85 sec­onds from lane sev­en, his third straight swim un­der the 23 sec­onds mark in two days which bet­tered his record swim (22.87) in the heats as well.

USA's Caleb Dres­sel got to the wall first with a World Cham­pi­onship ti­tle-win­ning time of 22.57 and while that was enough to win this event, he was slight­ly slow­er than his life­time best of 22.35, which he swam at the 2019 World Cham­pi­onships.

That 2019 swim is the sec­ond-fastest swim in his­to­ry and trails the world record in the event of 22.27 that An­drii Gov­orov hit in 2018.

The bat­tle for sil­ver was heat­ed with Brazil­ian Nicholas San­tos (22.78) ul­ti­mate­ly man­ag­ing to touch ahead of USA’s Michael An­drew (22.79) as the two swim­mers were sep­a­rat­ed by just 0.01 sec­onds.

San­tos was slow­er than his life­time best of 22.60 from 2019, while An­drew swam a new best time by just 0.01 sec­onds. This is the fourth straight World Cham­pi­onships where San­tos has medalled in this event, hav­ing tak­en sil­ver in both 2015 and 2019, along with a bronze in 2017.

For An­drew, this is his first in­di­vid­ual medal at a ma­jor long course in­ter­na­tion­al meet af­ter sev­er­al years of fi­nals swims and re­lay medals.

Just off the podi­um, Carter end­ed in fourth fol­lowed by Ital­ian Thomas Cec­con who al­so went un­der 23 sec­onds in 22.86, his sec­ond swim of the night af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in the 100 back­stroke se­mi-fi­nal.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Hun­gary's Sze­basszt­ian Sz­abo in 23.01 fol­lowed by Great Britain's Ben Proud (23.08) and Sin­ga­pore's Teong Tzen Wei in 23.29.

On Sat­ur­day, Carter, a for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia stand-out, qual­i­fied as the sixth fastest over­all in the semi­fi­nals af­ter he placed third in the sec­ond and fi­nal semi­fi­nal in 22.98 sec­onds, his sec­ond time un­der 23 sec­onds, be­hind Proud who won in 22.76, just .01 shy of his per­son­al best and British Record of 22.75, set back at the 2017 World Cham­pi­onships when he won the gold medal, to be the top qual­i­fi­er while Cec­con clocked 22.79 for the joint-sec­ond fastest in the heats, the same as heat one win­ner Dres­sel.

Cec­con, broke his Ital­ian Record for the sec­ond time af­ter he clocked 22.88 in the pre­lim­i­nary heats.

The quin­tet of Teong (23.03), 42-year-old San­tos, the fourth-fastest swim­mer in his­to­ry nar­row­ly squeaked in­to the fi­nal with the eighth-best time at 23.04 af­ter he placed fifth, while Hol­land’s Nyls Ko­rstan­je (23.14), Switzer­land’s Noe Pon­ti (23.29) and Ukraine’s An­drii Gov­orov (23.50), the world record hold­er at 22.27 com­plet­ed the com­peti­tors in Carter’s semi­fi­nal.

In ad­di­tion to Dres­sel, An­drew (22.87) and Sz­abo (22.91) qual­i­fied from semi­fi­nal one while the quin­tet of France’s Maxime Grous­set (23.10), Aus­tri­an Si­mon Buch­er (23.18), France’s Flo­rent Man­au­dou (23.23), Es­to­nia’s Daniel Za­it­sev (23.38), and Poland’s Kon­rad Cz­er­ni­ak (23.50).

And in Sat­ur­day morn­ing in the heat, Carter picked the right time to have a great swim, get­ting un­der 23 sec­onds for the first time in his ca­reer to es­tab­lish the top time of the morn­ing in a new per­son­al best and na­tion­al record of 22.87, the first time a T&T na­tion­al had gone un­der the 23 sec­onds mark in the event on his way to win­ning heat five with the fastest time of all swim­mers.

The win­ner of this coun­try’s first-ever Com­mon­wealth Games swim­ming medal Carter’s pre­vi­ous life­time best in the 50m but­ter­fly was 23.11 which he did at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in 2018 and over the past month, he al­so equalled the time at the Aquat­ics Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (ASATT) Pan Amer­i­can Aquat­ics Age-Group Tri­als held in Bal­main, Cou­va and al­so swam 23.18 and 23.15 in Mona­co dur­ing the Mare Nos­trum Se­ries.

Two years ago at the FI­NA World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships in Gwangju, South Ko­rea, Carter fin­ished eighth in heats of the 50m but­ter­fly in 23.33 be­fore he clocked 23.37 for the sixth spot in one of two semi­fi­nals and 13th spot over­all.

Carter re­turns to the pool on Tues­day morn­ing to swim in heat 10 of 11 of the men's 100m freestyle from 3.34 am (TT time) on Tues­day morn­ing against Aus­tralian Zac In­cer­ti, Cana­da's Rus­lan Gaziev, Ser­bia's An­drej Bar­na, Ro­man­ian David Popovi­ci, Hun­gary's Nan­dor Nemeth, Cana­da's Joshua Lien­do Ed­wards, Ital­ian Loren­zo Zazzeri, Chi­na's Jin­tong Yang and Swe­den's Robin Han­son with the semi­fi­nals set for 12.26 pm and the fi­nal on Wednes­day from 12.22 pm

And on Thurs­day, in the 50m freestyle, he will face the starter in the sixth of ten heats from lane two from 3 am with Ba­hami­an Lamar Tay­lor, Al­ger­ian Ous­sama San­houne, Aru­ba's Mikel Schreud­ers, Es­ton­ian Daniel Za­it­sev, Ar­genti­na's Gui­do Buscaglia, Ko­rea's Yuchan Ji, Lux­em­bourg's Re­mi Fabi­ani, South African Clay­ton Jim­mie and Souhail Hamouchane of Mo­roc­co with the semi­fi­nals card­ed for 12.42 pm, and the fi­nal a day lat­er from 12.09 pm.

Al­so on Fri­day, June 24 from 3.14 am (TT time), T&T's oth­er com­peti­tor in Hun­gary, Cherelle Thomp­son who left here on Sun­day will line up in the women's 50m freestyle heat sev­en of ten from lane 6 against Is­rael's Daria Golo­vaty, Bermu­da's Mad­dy Moore, Philip­ines Jas­mine Alkhal­di, Tapei's Mei-Chien Huang, Bul­gar­i­an Di­ana Petko­va, Switzer­land's Sasha Touret­s­ki, Hong Kong's Camille Lily Mei Cheng, Bo­livia's Karen Tor­rez Gus­man and Lat­vian Gabriela Nikiti­na with the semi­fi­nals card­ed for 12.17 pm, and the fi­nal, Sat­ur­day from 12.47 pm.

Fol­low­ing the FI­NA Cham­pi­onships, Carter is ex­pect­ed to fly the na­tion­al colours at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, in Ju­ly/Au­gust and then the FI­NA World Short Course Cham­pi­onships in De­cem­ber.