National distance swimmer Graham Chatoor won the men’s 400 metres freestyle B-final on the second night of the TYR Pro Swim Series at the Marguerite Aquatics Center, Mission Viejo in California, USA, on Thursday in a new national record mark erasing a nine-year-old record held by top T&T swimmer, Olympian Dylan Carter.
Swimming from lane four in the eight-man final, Chatoor, a New York University graduate was third after the first 100m of the final before he took the front at the 150m with a split of one minute, 27.79 seconds after which he never trailed, eventually winning in 3:57.45, to lower the national mark of 3:58.41 which was set by an 18-year-old Carter at the 20th Commonwealth Games in England in 2014.
Mason Nybeor took the silver medal in 3:59.44 while Daniel Li secured the bronze in 4:00.27.
Carter returned to the pool yesterday to compete in the 200m freestyle but could only muster a second-placed finish in the fourth of 11 heats from lane six with a time of 1:54.67 to finish behind Charlie Hawke’s winning time of 1:49.45 to miss out on a place among the A, B or C finals qualifiers.
In Thursday morning heats, Chatoor competing in the fourth of the day’s seven heats, was a comfortable winner in 4:00.01 which briefly placed him top of the list of qualifiers, with Julien Rousseau second in 4:02.06 followed by Guillaume Lord in 4:03.95.
However, in the penultimate heat, Coby Carrozza won in 3:54.54 to go top of the qualifiers list while Alec Enyeart (3:56.32), Andrew Matejka (3:57.23), and Charlie Hawke (3:58.19) were the other top four finishers in the heat to move into the top eight spots.
Going into the final heat, Chatoor was fifth on the list, but David Johnston (3:56.18), Marwan Aly Eikamash (3:56.27), Yigit Aslan (3:58.27), and fourth-placed Sean Grieshop (3:58.43) all clocked faster times than the ace T&T long-distance swimmer, by going under four minutes to advance to the A-Final which was scheduled to be contested last night.
Chatoor was relegated to the B-Final as the top qualifier along with Nyboer (4:00.09), Li (4:01.55), Quintin Cynor (4:01.59), Rosseau, Beck Parnham (4:02.65), Luke Brennan (4:03.04), and Dylan Porges Avila (4:03.16).
On Wednesday night, the T&T swimmer started well but in the end, faded into the eighth position in the fourth heat of the men’s 1,500m freestyle timed finals.
Chatoor led the eight-man field until just over the 500m mark when eventual heat winner William Mulgrew took command of the event while the T&T swimmer began to fade and was caught up to by the other swimmers.
In the end, Mulgrew won in 15:36.10, with Garvin Webb second in 15:58.68, and Brennan, third in 16:02.60, followed by Devyn Caples (16:03.64), Ryan King (16:04.82), Parnham (16:18.93), Hugo Janvier (16:24.80) and Chatoor, last home in 16:28.56.
El Kamash led from start to finish, stopping the clock at 15:15.19 to hold off Texas’ David Johnston, who was also well off his personal best of 15:02.37 with a mark of 15:16.19 with Enyeart, third in 15:27.16.
On Saturday, Chatoor, who established new national records in the men’s 800m freestyle and 1,500m freestyle at the CA MVN Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions also in Mission Viejo, will line up in the 800m freestyle with the heats carded for the morning session and the A, B, and C finals in the evening sessions.
At the Fran Crippen Meet, Chatoor touched the wall in eight minutes, 16.65 seconds, a new national mark for the second spot in the 800m freestyle, to trail the winner Luke Ellis who touched in a winning time of 8:06.34 while the 23-year-old T&T swimmer also set a new freestyle national record in 1,500m freestyle in 16:07.67 for the fifth spot.
In his other swims at the Fran Crippen, Chatoor was fifth in the 400m freestyle in 3:58.62, a personal best time after he clocked 4:00.20 in the preliminary heats, and in the 200m freestyle, he followed up his 1:55.21 time in the heats by with a 1:53.53, for the same fourth position in the final.