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.
