T&T's Dylan Carter will be keen to finish among the medal positions when he competes in the men's 50m freestyle at the Bergen Swim Festival at the Ado Arena, Bergen, Norway on Sunday.
The 29-year-old Carter, who just missed out on a 50m butterfly medal on Friday with a fourth-place finish in the final, will first be in action in heat five of six from lane at 3.02 am (TT time), where he will go head-to-head with 26-year-old multi-Olympic medallist Kyle Chalmers, Hungary's Levente Mozsarik and Holland's Ivo Stolk, as well as hometown entrants Kristian Eide Haugholt, Nikita Borodin, Bjornar Grytnes Laskerud, Nicholas Lia, Helje Stadaas and Magnus Reinholdt Belsiv.
In the sixth 50m freestyle, Holland's Kenzo Simons and Perry Laarhoven as well as Egyptian Sameh Elaraby Abdelrahman are all listed to compete, while in heat three, Dutch trio Floris Kotterink, Sean Niewold and Nylas Korstanje are entered, while the final is carded for 11.48 am (TT time).
On Friday in the men's 50m butterfly final, three-time World Short Course medal winner Carter got to the wall in 23.31 seconds for the fourth spot, trailing Abdelrahman (23.11), Korstanje (23.15) and Thomas Verhoeven (23.26), while Niewold was fifth in 23.34 and Lia was seventh in 24.02.
Also on Friday, Chalmers had a head-turning performance in the men’s 100m freestyle, as the multi-Olympic medallist stopped the clock at 47.27 seconds to turn in the third-fastest time of his prolific career after he topped the heats in 48.04.
He topped the podium by well over a second en route to gold, easily inserting himself atop the season’s world rankings in the process.
The runner-up performance by host swimmer Sander Sorensen shouldn’t be ignored, as the Norwegian set a new lifetime best and national record en route to silver in 48.86 after his morning swim of 49.03 to crush the previous national mark of 49.62 Markus Lie put on the books at the 2021 Norwegian Championships, while Niewold improved on his 49.37 in the heats to 49.13 for bronze.
The meet in Norway is the first taste of competition for Carter since he last competed on home soil at the National Age-Group Long Course Championships in late February, where he won the 50m butterfly in 23.34 and the 50m freestyle in 22.09, while he clocked one minute, 10.10 for 16th in the 100m freestyle.
In addition to 17-time FINA Swimming World Cup medal winner Carter, who is preparing for the World Championships in Singapore, having clocked a qualifying time of 21.90 in 50m freestyle at the last Carifta, other top swimmers from the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and Australia will be lurking among the field.
