Three-time World Short Course medal win­ner, Dy­lan Carter will be hop­ing to book his spot in his first fi­nal at this year's World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onship af­ter two at­tempts when he con­tests his pet event, the men's 50 me­tres freestyle at the Duna Are­na in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary on Sat­ur­day from 5.36 am (TT time).

The 28-year-old, a Com­mon­wealth Games sil­ver medal win­ner and ten-time Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games medal­list, will line up in the 12th and fi­nal heat in the men’s 50m freestyle from lane five against Swe­den’s Elias Pers­son, Es­to­nia’s Daniel Za­it­sev, Ire­land’s Thomas Fan­non, France's Maxime Grous­set, Hun­gary’s Sze­baszt­ian Sz­abo, Italy’s Leonar­do De­plano, Japan’s Masahi­ro Kawane, Aus­tria’s Heiko Gigler and Is­rael’s Me­iron Amir Cheruti.

So far at the World Cham­pi­onship, Carter who won a 50m freestyle bronze medal in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia two years ago and is a mul­ti­ple Olympian, had a ninth-placed fin­ish over­all in the men's 50m but­ter­fly in 22.16 sec­onds to just miss out on a spot in the eight-man fi­nal af­ter he qual­i­fied to the semi­fi­nals as the joint sev­enth-fastest qual­i­fi­er in 22.18, the same time as host swim­mer Sze­baszt­ian Sazbo.

A win­ner of sil­ver medal in the 50-me­tre but­ter­fly in 2021 in Abu Dhabi and bronze in the same event in 2018 in Hangzhou, Chi­na, Carter al­so qual­i­fied to the 100m freestyle semi­fi­nal in the joint 11th-spot in 46.63 sec­onds with Lithua­nia's Tomas Naviko­nis, how­ev­er, the T&T swim­mer opt­ed to scratch the semi­fi­nals to fo­cus on the 50m freestyle while he al­so opt­ed out of the 50m back­stroke

Last month, Carter, a for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Tro­jans stand­out swim­mer warmed up for the sea­son-end­ing Cham­pi­onship by com­pet­ing in the three stops of the World Aquat­ics Swim­ming World Cup.

In the fi­nal leg in Sin­ga­pore, Carter placed fifth in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly in 22.27 sec­onds af­ter he clocked Carter in 22.53 in the heats; while he won bronze in the 100m freestyle in 46.60; fifth in the men’s 50m back­stroke fi­nal in 23.13, and gold in the men’s 50m freestyle in 20.82, just 0.12 off his 20.70 per­son­al best time set at the 2022 Short Course World Cham­pi­onships.

When the World Cup be­gan back on Oc­to­ber 18 in Shang­hai, Chi­na, the San­ta Clara, Cal­i­for­nia-born Carter won gold in the men’s 50m freestyle in 21.06 sec­onds for his fourth win in the event his­to­ry af­ter three straight wins in 2022 on the way to the over­all men’s World Cup ti­tle.

He was placed sixth in the 100m freestyle in 47.02; eighth in the 50m back­stroke in 23.65 and fifth in the 50m but­ter­fly in 22.53.

Carter then com­pet­ed in the sec­ond leg in Ko­rea at the Munhak Park Tae-Hwan Swim­ming Pool in Michuhol-gu, In­cheon where he missed out on a top-three fin­ish in any of his four events.

In the 50m freestyle, Carter was eighth to the wall in 21.34 while he was ninth in both the 100m freestyle (47.43) and 50m back­stroke (23.74) as well as 11th in the 50m but­ter­fly.

USA-based Zuri Fer­gu­son al­so made her cham­pi­onship de­but for T&T af­ter do­ing so at the Olympic Games ear­li­er this year as well and has so fare sta­b­lished two new na­tion­al records.

First­ly, Fer­gu­son, 17, who at­tends the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da set a new na­tion­al record in the women's 100m back­stroke of one minute, 00.12 sec­onds for the 35th best time over­all which bet­tered the pre­vi­ous mark of one minute, 01,92 held by Or­nel­la Walk­er.

Then in the 50m back­stroke, Fer­gu­son be­came the first T&T woman to go un­der 28 sec­onds when she touched the wall in 27.83 for the 32nd spot over­all, which bet­tered an­oth­er of Walk­er's na­tion­al record, 28.69 which she did last month as well as the 15-17 age-group mark of 29.30.

To­mor­row (Sun­day), T&T's third mem­ber of the swim team, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee stu­dent, Nikoli Black­man will get his first taste of com­pe­ti­tion in the sec­ond of sev­en 200m freestyle heats along­side An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s Ste­fano Mitchell, Pak­istan’s Aryaan Din, Syr­ia’s Omar Ab­bass, Egypt’s Ab­dal­la Youssef Nasr, Bosnia Herze­gov­ina Jo­van Le­kic, Lebanon’s Si­mon Douei­hy, Philip­pines Adri­an Eich­ler, Koso­vo’s Ar­i­on Budi­ma and Al­ba­nia’s Rei­di Re­suli.

Fer­gu­son will al­so be in ac­tion on Sun­day's fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion when she con­tests her third and fi­nal event, the women’s 200m back­stroke in heat two of five with Macau's Un Iao Wong, Lebanon’s Taline Mourad, Faroe Is­lands Elis­a­beth Er­lends­dot­tir, Mon­go­lia's Ar­i­un­tamir Enkh-Am­galan, Moldo­va’s Na­talia Zaite­va, Mau­ri­tius An­ish­ta Teeluck, Lau­rent Elise­beth Estra­da of Cu­ba, Danielle Ti­tus of Bar­ba­dos and Guatemalan Melis­sa Diego.