USA-based T&T swimmer Dylan Carter earned a silver medal in the men’s 50m butterfly for the London Roar at Match Day Six of the International Swimming League in Naples Italy on Sunday.
The second-place finish by Carter added to his 4x100m freestyle relay gold medal on Saturday at the Felice Scandone Swimming Pool as the Roar topped the four-team two-day series with 529.5 points after going into the final event with a 17 points lead over defending champions Cali Condors.
The Condors tallied 478.5 for the second spot after having to cope without American Olympic stand-out Caeleb Dressel on the final day due to illness.
The win by the Roar was also the first time Condors had suffered a defeat dating back to the end of the 2019 season as the latter went unbeaten last year.
Host club Aqua Centurions finished third with 379.5 points, and Tokyo Frog Kings, fourth with 376.5.
Competing from lane three, Carter raced home in 22.42 seconds for second spot and seven points, to trail Aqua Centurions’ Szebasztian Szabo who won gold in 22.18 for 12 points while Tokyo Frog Kings’ Takeshi Kawamoto and London Roar’s Vini Lanza tied for bronze in 22.68 for 5.5 points each.
The other finishers in the race were Cali Condor’s Oleg Kostin (22.91), Centurions’ Thomas Ceccon (23.08), Condors’ Marcin Cieslak (23.23), and Frog Kings’ Vladimir Morozov, eighth in 24.67.
The 25-year-old Carter, a University of Southern California graduate also competed in the men’s 50m freestyle skins event.
However, the T&T ace could only muster a sixth-place finish in the first of eight swimmers in 21.50 to miss out on a top-four finish and a second-round spot.
Szabo won in 21.32 ahead of team-mate Alessandro Miressi who clocked 21.36 while Roar’s Katsumi Nakamura was third in 21.40, just ahead of fellow semifinalist Pedro Spajari of Frog Kings, who got to the wall in 21.41 followed by Cali Condors’ Justin Ress in 21.43.
In the semifinals, Nakamura won in 22.14 to beat Miressi (22.35), Szabo (22.49), and Spajari (22.81) into second, third and fourth respectively.
And in the two-man final, Nakamura won in 22.93 for 21 points, with Miressi, second in 24.14.
On Saturday, two-time Olympian Carter won his first gold medal and third medal overall in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
Boosted by the return of Australian Kyle Chalmers who swam the opening leg, the Roar quartet which also featured Katsumi Nakamura, Carter and Edward Mildred combined for the gold-winning time of three minutes, 05.05 seconds for 30 points.
A distant second was Tokyo Frog Kings (3:07.34 minutes), while Aqua Centurions (3:07.48 mins) took the third spot.
In his second event on Saturday, Carter again swam the third leg behind Luke Greenbank and Ross Murdoch with Nakamura on the anchor leg in the men’s 4x100 medley for a fifth-placed finish in 3:25.37 minutes.
Cali Condors took gold in 3:21.29, ahead of Roar’s ‘A’ team who clocked 3:22.29, and Frog Kings’ (3:22.63) while Aqua Centurions ended fourth in 3:23.78.
When the ISL swam off earlier this month, Carter and his new Roar teammates opened their campaign in Match Day Three, with T&T swimmer picking up a silver and bronze medal.
On September 3, Carter got bronze in the 50m butterfly in 22.62 seconds to trail 41-year-old Brazilian Nicholas Santos of Iron who won in 22.18, and Energy Standard’s Ben Proud (22.43).
A day earlier, Carter swam the joint-fastest leg of 46.37 in picking up a silver medal as part of the 4 x 100m freestyle relay quartet alongside Nakamura, Zac Incerti and Duncan Scott who clocked a combined time of 3:07.62 seconds for 14 team points.
The NY Breakers won in 3:07.02 minutes while Energy Standard finished third in 3:07.63.
In his first competitive event since representing T&T at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Carter ended fourth in the men’s 50m freestyle in 21.61 seconds, just ahead of club-mate Kenzo Simons, who touched in 21.49.
Proud took gold in 20.86 followed by the Iron’s duo of Marco Orsi (21.26), and Thom De Boer (21.32).