Nigel SimonT&T's Dylan Carter went in search an elusive medal in the men's 50m butterfly final at the 13th FINA World Short Course (25m) Swimming Championships last night at the WFCU Centre, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
A fourth placed finisher in the men's 200m freestyle final on Wednesday night in a new national record of one minute, 42.48 seconds, the 20-year-old Carter of the University of Southern California was second in the second semifinal and third fastest overall from lane two, in 22.53 seconds to trail USA's Tom Shields who won in 22.38.
?Shields is a 2016 Rio Olympic finalist in the 100 butterfly, and swam the heats on the USA gold medal winning 4 x 100m medley Olympic relay team.
He is currently holds US Short Course record in the 50m butterfly, 100m butterfly, and the 200m butterfly.
Russian Aleksandr Popkov was a distant third in the heat in 22.69 while Ukraine's Andrii Govorov (22.70) and Venezuela's Albert Subirats (22.76) were fourth and fifth respectively and also qualified for the gold medal splash.
The trio of Brazilians Nicholas Santos (22.82), Lithuania's Mindaugas Sadauskas (22.87) and Mexico's Daniel Carranza (22.96) occupied places sixth, seventh and eighth respectively, and did not advance.
The three qualifiers from semifinal one were the Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games champion as well as the Commonwealth record holder in the 50m and 100m butterfly South African Chad Le Clos who won his event in 22.41 ahead of Australian David Morgan (22.62) and Japan's Takeshi Kawamoto (22.74).
Belerusian Tauhen Tsurkin (22.82), Ukraine's Andrii Khloptsov (22.88), Great Britain's Adam Barrett (22.92), Russian Daniil Pakhomov (23.00) and China's Zhuhao Li (23.52) also contested semifinal one but did not advance.
Earlier on Friday in the morning heats, Carter was fourth fastest in heat 11 of 13 and ninth best overall, in 22.85 seconds, a new national record to erased the record of Joshua Mc Leod (23.08) which was set in 2014.
The trio finishing ahead of him in the heat were Kawamoto (22.62), Popkov (22.68) and Shields (22.79) who were the second, third and seventh fastest qualifiers respectively.
Brazilian Nicholas Santos, the 2012 event winner was the fastest home overall when he won the 12th heat in 22.53 seconds ahead Morgan (22.69), and Govorov (23.07); Subirats won heat nine in 22.75 to earn his spot among the top 16 qualifiers and was joined by heat eight winner, Carranza (22.89) while Barrett (22.76), defending 50m butterfly champion Le Clos (22.84), Tsurkin (22.85), Khloptsov (23.01), Belurusian Pavel Sankovich (23.09), Pakhomov (23.19) and Sadauskas (23.22) all qualified from the final heat.