JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Carter splashes 50m free World Cup gold, equals Bovell III record 5 wins

by

Nigel Simon
265 days ago
20241101
T&T's Dylan Carter won the 50m freestyle event gold medal.

T&T's Dylan Carter won the 50m freestyle event gold medal.

T&T’s Dy­lan Carter re­turned to his gold­en best when he won the men's 50-me­tre freestyle fi­nal on the open­ing night of fi­nals at the third and fi­nal leg of the World Aquat­ics Swim­ming World Cup at the OCBC Aquat­ic Cen­ter in Sin­ga­pore on Thurs­day.

Carter won in a time of 21.06 sec­onds at the World Cup, which splashed off on Oc­to­ber 18 in Shang­hai, Chi­na, just ahead of USA's Jack Dolan (21.07) and Ger­many's Mar­ius Kusch (21.09) for his fourth win in the event's his­to­ry. He had three straight wins in 2022 en route to the over­all men's World Cup ti­tle. The 28-year-old Cal­i­for­nia-born Carter was eighth in the sec­ond leg in In­cheon, Ko­rea last week in 21.34.

How­ev­er, Carter, who had the sec­ond-fastest re­ac­tion time of 0.62 sec­onds, on­ly bet­tered by Hol­land's Ken­zo Si­mons' 0.60, was not to be de­nied this time around as he made his po­si­tion­ing in lane five for the eight-man fi­nal work to per­fec­tion and was nice­ly placed in the sec­ond spot at the 25m split with a time of 9.98 sec­onds, on­ly be­hind Kusch's time of 9.95 while Aus­tralian Isaac Coop­er was third in 10.05.

A three-time Olympian, as well as a three-time World Short Course Cham­pi­onship medal win­ner, Carter then turned on the burn­ers on the turn for home to have the fastest sec­ond-half split of 10.84 to the wall first in 20.82, the on­ly swim­mer un­der 21 sec­onds in the fi­nal, and just 0.12 off his 20.70 per­son­al best time set at the 2022 Short Course World Cham­pi­onships.

Aussie sprint­er Coop­er who had a sec­ond-half split of 10.96 moved up one spot in­to sec­ond in 21.01, slight­ly quick­er than his sil­ver medal-gar­ner­ing per­for­mance of 21.07 in In­cheon in mid-week while Kusch who clocked 11.09 over the sec­ond half of the race, third in 21.04 for his sec­ond bronze in the event af­ter a sim­i­lar fin­ish in Shang­hai.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Hol­land's Nyls Ko­rstan­je (21.12), USA's Jack Dolan (21.16), Si­mons (21.21), Es­ton­ian Ralf Tri­buntsov (21.23) and sec­ond-leg win­ner Ko­rea's Ji Yuchan in 21.28.

With the win, Carter im­proved to five gold medals at the World Cup in the men's 50m freestyle adding the first-leg vic­to­ry to his triple feat of win­ning three 50m freestyle, 50m back­stroke, and 50m but­ter­fly gold medals at three straight stops in Berlin, Ger­many; Toron­to, Cana­da; and In­di­anapo­lis, USA in 2022 to equal Olympic bronze medal win­ner George Bovell III's five gold medals at the World Cup in the same event, in­clu­sive of four in 2012 (Stock­holm, Swe­den); (Moscow, Rus­sia); (Bei­jing, Chi­na); and (Tokyo, Japan), and one in 2014 in Sin­ga­pore.

Carter will now tar­get Bovell III's next World Cup record mark of eight wins in one event af­ter the for­mer Auburn Uni­ver­si­ty swim­ming ace won eight 100m med­ley gold medals and one 200m med­ley gold among his 41 World Cup medals, which al­so fea­tured 20 sil­ver and eight bronze.

In the morn­ing heats Carter took the first heat six, post­ing a time of 20.96, best­ing Si­mons by near­ly half a sec­ond as the Ju­nior World Record hold­er stopped the clock in 21.41 as they clocked the sec­ond and eighth best times, re­spec­tive­ly.

The next heat saw Ko­rstan­je al­so go un­der 21.00 as the Dutch­man was out in sub 9.95 (the on­ly sub 10 split in the field) and closed in to hit the wall in 20.88, hold­ing off the fast-charg­ing Dolan who stopped the clock at 21.00, ahead of Aus­tralian Olympian Isaac Coop­er’s 21.18 while from the eighth and fi­nal heat Kusch won in 21.03, just inch­ing out Yuchan (21.07).

A for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Tro­jans stand­out swim­mer Carter will re­turn to the pool to con­test the 50m back­stroke, and 100m freestyle to­day.

In the 50m back­stroke, Carter starts in lane six of the fifth and fi­nal heat against Dolan, Coop­er, New Zealand's Jack Hendy, Croa­t­ian Niko­la Mil­jenic, Philip­pines Metin Mah­mu­to­glu, Kusch, South African Pieter Co­et­ze and home town en­trants Brien Lim, and Yi Chan.

In the 100m freestyle, he com­petes in the tenth of 11 heats al­so from lane six ver­sus Malaysia's Yin Chuen Lim, Aus­tralian Ed­ward Som­merville, New Zealand's Hugo Wrathall, Chi­na's Juner Chen, New Zealand's Carter Swift, Den­mark's Ras­mus Nick­elsen, Aussie duo Matthew Tem­ple and Jesse Cole­man and Sin­ga­pore's Sage Tan.

On Sat­ur­day, Carter is ex­pect­ed to close off with the 50m but­ter­fly on Sat­ur­day (No­vem­ber 2) ahead of his next ma­jor event, the World Aquat­ic Cham­pi­onship in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary, from De­cem­ber 10-15.

Walk­er makes World Cup bow in back­stroke

First in­to ac­tion in the third event on the open­ing day's sched­ule for T&T was Or­nel­la Walk­er of YM­CA Aqua War­riors was fifth in the fourth and fi­nal women's 50m back­stroke heat in 28.69, a new per­son­al best im­prov­ing on her 29.02 from 2021 for the 13th best time over­all.

The win­ner of her heat was USA's Re­gan Smith in the top qual­i­fy­ing mark at 26.01 with Aus­tralian Iona An­der­son next in 26.26, fol­lowed by Swe­den's Louise Hans­son (27.01) and New Zealand's Is­abelle Gib­son (28.05) with the sev­enth and 11th fastest times, re­spec­tive­ly.

A three-time CC­CAN bronze medal win­ner in the 200m back­stroke (2:27:02 mins), 100m back­stroke (1:03:83), and 50m back­stroke (29.67 secs), the To­ba­go-born Walk­er win­ner of five medals at the Pan Amer­i­can Age-Group Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship in 2022, will re­turn to the pool to­day (Fri­day) for the sec­ond of four 100m back­stroke heats against In­done­sia's Em­i­lie Made­line Ba­wono, USA's Kaitie Grimes and Bea­ta Nel­son, Aus­tralian Han­nah Jane Fred­er­icks and host swim­mers Ju­lia Yeo, Myra Li, Maile Sul­li­van, Mad­dy Har­ri­son and Char­lotte Ng.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored