T&T’s Dy­lan Carter will be aim­ing to make amends for his sixth-placed fin­ish in the men’s 50 me­tres but­ter­fly on Wednes­day night at the 16th FI­NA World Short Course (SC) Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships when he lines up in the 50m back­stroke fi­nal at the Mel­bourne Sports and Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Aus­tralia from 5 am morn­ing.

This af­ter the 26-year-old Carter qual­i­fied for the fi­nal as the joint fifth fastest swim­mer over­all with Ital­ian Loren­zo Mo­ra, af­ter he was a third-place fin­ish­er in the first of two semi­fi­nals in 22.90 sec­onds.

Aus­tralian 18-year-old Isaac Coop­er had the swim of his life, speed­ing to a new per­son­al best of 22.52, mark­ing a new World Ju­nior Record (22.77), as well as new Ocean­ic and Aus­tralian Records as well win­ning the semi­fi­nal ahead of USA’s Ryan Mur­phy (22.74), while Ger­many’s Marek Ul­rich se­cured the fourth spot in the heat and sev­enth best time over­all to get in­to the gold medal swim.

In semi­fi­nal two, Poland’s Kacper Stokows­ki touched the wall in 22.74, a per­son­al best and a new Pol­ish Record to tie with Mur­phy for the sec­ond fastest qual­i­fy­ing time, and he was joined from the heat for the fi­nal by South African Pieter Co­et­ze who clocked 22.86 for the fourth best time, and Mo­ra (22.90).

There was a three-way tie for the eighth po­si­tion be­tween semi­fi­nal heat one duo Javier Aceve­do of Cana­da, Greece’s Apos­to­los Chris­tou, and USA’s Hunter Arm­strong from semi­fi­nal heat two, all of whom swam 23.05.

That tie will be set­tled via a swim-off lat­er in the ses­sion to de­ter­mine which of the three swim­mers will ad­vance to the fi­nal to­mor­row.

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing ses­sion, com­pet­ing in the morn­ing pre­lim­i­nary heats, Carter, a sil­ver medal win­ner in the 50m but­ter­fly at last De­cem­ber’s Short Course World Cham­pi­onships in Abu Dhabi al­so had to set­tle for sec­ond in the fifth of six heats in 23.07, be­hind Co­et­ze’s 23.01 for the fourth and third best times over­all while Mo­ra was third in the heat and 23.09 for fifth over­all.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the heat were Czech Re­pub­lic’s Tomas Fran­ta (23.26), New Zealand’s Cameron Gray (23.49), Aus­tri­an Si­mon Buch­er (23.55), France’s Mewen Tomac (23.58), and Chi­na’s Gukailai Wang (23.97).

Last night, Carter al­so be­gin his medal hunt in his third and fi­nal event at the Cham­pi­onship, the 50m freestyle in heat nine of 11 from lane four against Cana­da’s Yuri Kisil, Hong Kong’s Ian Yen­tou Ho, Hol­land’s Ken­zo Si­mons, Greece’s Kris­t­ian Gkolomeev, Poland’s Karol Os­trows­ki, Ital­ian Leonar­do De­plano, and Es­ton­ian Za­it­sev.

Carter en­tered the Cham­pi­onships among the favourites to medal in all three of his events af­ter a stel­lar FI­NA World Cup Swim­ming se­ries in which he won all three legs of each of the three events in Berlin, Ger­many; Toron­to, Cana­da, and In­di­anapo­lis, USA.

At the con­clu­sion of the World Cup, he was the over­all top-ranked men’s com­peti­tor with 172.6 points to nar­row­ly pre­vail over USA’s Nick Fink (172.3), while South African Le Clos (166.3) end­ed in the third spot.

On Wednes­day, morn­ing Carter, who en­tered the fi­nal as one of the favourites to medal af­ter sweep­ing the three legs of the event dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed FI­NA World Cup Swim­ming Se­ries in Ger­many, Cana­da and the USA placed sixth in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly in 22.14.

Against all odds again, it was 42-year-old Brazil­ian Nicholas San­tos who did it again to be­come the old­est world cham­pi­on in his­to­ry in the two-lap race. And, he did it with one of the fastest times ever record­ed.

San­tos stopped the clock at 21.78 to get to the wall first ahead of Switzer­land’s Olympic medal­list Noe Pon­ti (21.96), and third-place fin­ish­er Sze­baszt­ian Sz­abo of Hun­gary, who touched the wall in 21.98.

Sin­ga­pore’s Tzen Wei Teong was fourth home in 22.01 fol­lowed by South African Chad Le Clos (22.11), and Carter, while the pair of Ger­many’s Mar­ius Kusch (22.17), and Es­ton­ian Daniel Za­itzev who clocked 22.38 were the oth­er fi­nal­ists.

San­tos’ 21.78 ef­fort falls just .03 out­side of his own world record mark of 21.75 from 2018, a record he shares with Sz­abo who al­so logged a 21.75 in 2021.