T&T's Dy­lan Carter was the joint win­ner of heat six with South Ko­re­an Yuchan Ji in a new per­son­al best of 21.91 sec­onds but came up short in his ef­fort to reach the semi­fi­nals of the FI­NA World Long Course Cham­pi­onships men’s 50m freestyle at the Duna Are­na in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary on Thurs­day.

Com­ing off a fourth-place fin­ish in the men's 50m but­ter­fly and a semi­fi­nal ap­pear­ance in the 100m freestyle, both in new na­tion­al record times, the 26-year-old Carter was hop­ing to em­u­late George Bovell III as this coun­try’s lone medal­list at a Long Course Cham­pi­onships af­ter the now-re­tired Bovell III won bronze in 2013 in the 50m freestyle in Barcelona in 21.51 sec­onds while a year ear­li­er he al­so won a bronze medal in the 100m In­di­vid­ual Med­ley at the FI­NA World Short Course Cham­pi­onships in Is­tan­bul, Turkey.

Swim­ming from lane two in his heat, Carter touched the wall in 22.19 sec­onds, for the top spot the same as lane six swim­mer Ji as both swim­mers tied for 17th spot over­all, one po­si­tion off the 16th and fi­nal semi­fi­nal qual­i­fi­er, Venezue­lan Al­ber­to Vi­vas Mestre, who clocked 22.12 for the sev­enth spot in heat nine of ten.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in heat six were Aru­ba’s Mikel Schreud­ers (22.44), Es­ton­ian Daniel Za­it­sev (22.45), Ar­genti­na’s Gui­do Buscaglia (22.55), Al­ger­ian Ous­sama San­houne (22.56), South African Clay­ton Jim­mie (22.74), Lux­em­bourg’s Re­mi Fabi­ani (22.80), Ba­hami­an Lamar Tay­lor (22.86), and Souhail Hamouchane of Mo­roc­co who touched the wall in 23.46.

The pair of Carter and Ji were then in­volved in a swim as it re­lat­ed to the semi­fi­nal re­serves with the for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Tro­jans swim­mer, Carter clock­ing a new per­son­al best of 21.91 which would have been good enough for the eighth-fastest qual­i­fy­ing time in the heats, with Ji, sec­ond home in 22.03, a time which would have been good enough for 13th best in the heats.

Two years ago at the FI­NA World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships in Gwangju, South Ko­rea, Carter placed 41st in the 50m freestyle in 22.65 but he then im­proved on that time with 22.24 sec­onds in win­ning the B-Fi­nal at last month’s Mare Nos­trum Meet in Canet-en-Rous­sil­lon, France be­fore set­ting his new mark yes­ter­day.

Head­ing the list of qual­i­fiers to the semi­fi­nals was 32-year-old Bruno Fratus of Brazil who swam his 98th sub-22.00 sec­onds 100 freestyle in his ca­reer, with Cana­da’s Joshua Lien­do sec­ond in 21.72, fol­lowed by USA's Michael An­drew (21.74), Great Britain's Ben­jamin Proud (21.76), Ukraine's Vla­dyslav Bukhov (21.87), Great Britain's Ed­ward Bur­ras (21.89), Greece's Kris­t­ian Gkolomeev (21.90) and Hol­land's Thom de Boer (21.91), the top eight qual­i­fiers.

They were joined in the semi­fi­nals by Ital­ian Loren­zo Zazzeri (21.95), Poland's Pawel Juraszek (21.97), France's Maxime Grous­set (21.97), and Hun­gary's Sze­baszt­ian Sz­abo (21.99), who all went un­der 22 sec­onds while Is­rael's Amir Cheruti (22.07), Hol­land's Jesse Puts (22.09), and Mestre.

Speak­ing af­ter his swim, Carter was quick to ad­mit that he may have mis­judged his swim in the heats, which un­luck­i­ly for him cost him a spot in the semi­fi­nals, and end­ed his hopes of a medal.

Carter ex­plained, "To­day (Thurs­day), I think was just mis­man­aged as in the swim-off for 17th I swam a time that would have had me eighth in the heats, so it was just a lit­tle bit maybe poor ex­e­cu­tion on my path or be­ing a lit­tle too con­ser­v­a­tive think­ing that I would be com­fort­ably in­to the semis, and I wasn't so all these things are part of the ex­pe­ri­ence and gives me much more ex­pe­ri­ence mov­ing for­ward but 21.91 in the swim-off I am re­al­ly hap­py with and pit puts me in re­al­ly good shape head­ing in­to the Com­mon­wealth Games.

"It's been great train­ing this week and I am re­al­ly ex­cit­ed for my next en­gage­ment."

On Tues­day, Carter low­ered his per­son­al best and na­tion­al record for the sec­ond time on the day, but it was still not enough to book a spot in his sec­ond fi­nal, the men’s 100m freestyle.

Swim­ming from lane sev­en he placed eighth in the sec­ond of two semi­fi­nals in 48.30 sec­onds for the 14th spot over­all of the 16 semi­fi­nal­ists.

In the heats, Carter com­pet­ing from lane one of ten in heat ten of 11 touched the wall in a then-new per­son­al best and na­tion­al record of 48.40 for sixth in the heat and joint 11th-fastest over­all with Aruban Schreud­ers who was the win­ner of heat eight in a na­tion­al record mark as well.

Carter al­so broke his record from the 2019 World Cham­pi­onships (48.52), where he placed 12th by .12 sec­onds, af­ter he placed 16th in the heats in 48.77 to qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals, while Schreud­ers beat his record from the 2019 Pan Amer­i­can Games by .68, putting the record be­low 49.00 for the first time.

On Sun­day, Carter placed fourth in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly fi­nal in a new na­tion­al record time of 22.85 sec­onds from lane sev­en, his third straight swim un­der the 23 sec­onds mark in two days which bet­tered his pre­vi­ous record swim of 22.87 which he es­tab­lished in top­ping the list of qual­i­fiers in the heats on Sat­ur­day.

In the semi­fi­nals, Carter qual­i­fied as the sixth fastest over­all af­ter he placed third in the sec­ond and fi­nal semi­fi­nal in 22.98 sec­onds, his sec­ond time un­der 23 sec­onds, be­hind Great Britain’s Ben­jamin Proud who won in 22.76.

Re­flect­ing on his World Cham­pi­onship cam­paign, Carter said he was pleased with the ef­fort and was now look­ing ahead to the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land next month.

He said, " I'm re­al­ly hap­py with the swims as ob­vi­ous­ly I had some re­al­ly good ones and the 50m but­ter­fly ob­vi­ous­ly is the high­light which is my main event and I was ob­vi­ous­ly hop­ing to medal but fourth place is noth­ing to be ashamed of as it's fourth in the world."

Carter al­so cred­it­ed his coach Dex­ter Brown for the work he has done since com­ing on board with the T&T swim­mer last year say­ing, "Dex­ter has been phe­nom­e­nal. He be­lieves in me 100 per­cent and he is will­ing to let me have a say and that's all you can ask for from a coach.

"He has a great eye for tech­nique and un­der­stands sprint train­ing bet­ter than any coach in the world at present," stat­ed Carter.

On Fri­day (June 24), from 3.14 am (T&T time), T&T’s oth­er com­peti­tor in Hun­gary, Cherelle Thomp­son will line up in the women’s 50m freestyle heat sev­en of ten from lane six 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.