T&T's Dylan Carter swam a personal best in the men's 100m backstroke when the 16th FINA World Championship continued in Kazan, Russia yesterday, but it was not enough to advance him to the semifinals.
Competing in the fourth heat, the 19-year-old Carter, fresh off representing T&T at the 26th Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada, touched the wall in 55.24 seconds to trail Hungary's Gabor Balog who won in 54.65 and Romania's Robert Glinta (55.07).While Carter's time was only good for 30th overall, it was marginally off Olympic and two-time World bronze medal winner George Bovell's national record of 55.22.
The others in the heat were Estonian Ralp Tribuntsov (55.13), Norway's Lavrans Solli (55.28), Colombian Omar Andres Pinzon Garcia (55.90), Latvian Janis Saltans (56.15), Indonesia's Gede Siman Sudartawa I (56.39) and Vietnam's Paul Le Nguyen (56.95).On Sunday, Carter became the first T&T swimmer other than Bovell to get past the first round of a Senior Long Course World Swimming Championships when he placed 15th in the semifinals in the men's 50m butterfly.
Lining up in the first semifinal, Bovell raced home in 23.60, a new national record, but only eighth among the field with Brazilian Nicholas Santos (23.05), Hungary's Laszlo Cseh (23.06), Poland's Konrad Czerniak (23.07) and Ukraine's Andrii Govorov (23.15) and Brazil's Cesar Cielo (23.29), all advancing to the final.
Earlier in the ninth and final heat on the opening day of the eight-day swimming competition, Carter, a World Junior Championship silver medalist, placed fifth in 23.67 which was good enough for 15th. The top four in the heat included Manaudou (23.15) and Spain's Rafael Munoz (23.36) who had the first and third top qualifying times, China's Yang Shi (23.43) and Govorov (23.49).
The time lowered his national record set on his way to one of two silver medals at last year's Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing China.Manaudou won the final in 22.97 ahead of Santos (23.09), and the duo of Cseh and Czerniak who both clocked 23.15.
Up next for Carter is the men's the 100m freestyle tomorrow in which he will compete in the tenth of 12 heats alongside Christian Quintero (Venezuela), Kristian Gkolomeev (Greece), Pieter Timmers (Belgium), Fabien Gilot (France), Vladimir Morozov (Russia), Sebastiaan Verschuren (Holland), Czerniak, Matheus Santana (Brazil) and Jimmy Feigen (USA) and .
On Friday, Carter also lines up in the 11th of 12 men's 50m freestyle heats with Renzo Tjon-A-Joe (Suriname), Luca Dotta (Italy), Nathan Adrian (USA), Matthew Abood (Australia), Anthony Ervin (USA), Bruno Fratus (Brazil), Ari-Pekka Liukkonen (Finland), Govorov and Jasper Aerents (Belgium)
Today at 2.54am (TT time), T&T other entrant, David McLeod, will swim the heat three of seven in the men's 50m backstroke with Tern Jian Han Tern (Malaysia), Alexis Santos (Portugal), Riyad Djendouci (Algeria), Daniil Bukin (Uzbekistan), Daniel Ramirez Carranza (Mexico), Mohamed Khalen Mohamed Hussei (Egypt), Martin Zhelev (Bulgaria), Jamal Chavoshifar (Iran) and Pok Man Ngou (Macao).