Nigel Si­mon

USA-based top T&T ju­nior swim­mer, Dy­lan Carter swam his way in­to the his­to­ry books when earned a sil­ver medal in the boys 50m but­ter­fly fi­nal at the Fourth FI­NA World Ju­nior Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships be­ing held at the Ham­dan Bin Mo­hammed Bin Rashid Sports Com­plex, Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, yes­ter­day.Go­ing in­to the fi­nal, the 16-year-old Carter who is ex­pect­ed to start school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in Jan­u­ary was de­ter­mined to be among the medals.This af­ter he missed out on pre­cious met­al in the the 100m back­stroke fi­nal on Tues­day, by a mere 0.03 sec­onds short of a bronze medal, in 55.36, a na­tion­al record in the 15-17 age-group and eight in the 50m back­stroke fi­nal in 26.13 sec­onds, well off his new na­tion­al 15-17 record of 25.99 he sat a day ear­li­er on Wednes­day.

And he did not dis­ap­point as he was third fastest off the starter's block in 0.64 sec­onds be­hind South African Ryan Co­et­zee (0.61) and Japan's Takaya Ya­sue be­fore he made up good ground and raced home in 23.98 sec­onds, just 0.02 sec­onds be­hind Aus­tralian Cameron Jones (23.96) while Japan­ese Takaya Ya­sue got bronze in 24.01.Speak­ing af­ter­wards Carter who al­so ex­pressed his de­light on twit­ter, tweet­ing that he was rev­el­ling in his 'cov­et­ed sil­ver­ware' said, "It was an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. The whole time be­fore the race I was just think­ing that I re­al­ly want to get gold, I re­al­ly want to get gold, I re­al­ly just want to get a medal. When I touched the wall, and saw the two (2) next to my name it was every­thing that I could want from this meet and it re­al­ly all hap­pened in my last race.He at­trib­uted that hav­ing a great men­tal at­ti­tude as well as pos­i­tive en­er­gy were key fac­tors in help­ing him achieve his goal. "I think that be­liev­ing in your­self has so much to do with how you per­form and just not let any­thing psy­che you out, this I feel is key to be­ing a great ath­lete.

He added, "I am very very tired af­ter five days of com­pe­ti­tion, giv­ing 100 per cent each day. You can even see it in the time I swam. The time I did in the pre­lim­i­nary would have won the event tonight (last night). I went about 0.1 of a sec­ond slow­er and I think that is from the meet wear­ing on me.With re­gards to the oth­er con­tribut­ing fac­tors Carter said, "We were very for­tu­nate to spend over a week in Kuwait to adapt to the Mediter­ranean con­di­tions and pre­pare for the meet. This was arranged by my coach in Flori­da Alex Pussiel­di, Cap­tain Hu­sain Al­musal­lam of The Kuwait Swim­ming Fed­er­a­tion and the Olympic Coun­cil of Asia was kind enough to host the men con­tin­gent of the T&T team for about eight days. We are very grate­ful for be­ing giv­en this op­por­tu­ni­ty and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.He al­so thanked the T&T pub­lic for all its sup­port. Iit meant so much to me. I would be anx­ious to see the well wish­es on my phone af­ter each ses­sion. I would not have achieved this with­out the sup­port of my fam­i­ly, my mom is with me and my lit­tle sis­ter, my dad is at home in T&T my oth­er sib­lings.

Carter's time in the fi­nal was short of his 23.87 clock­ing in the heats, the sec­ond best time of the pre­lim­i­nary, which es­tab­lished him as the fastest T&T swim­mer of all-time in the 50 me­tres but­ter­fly.The oth­er top eight qual­i­fiers from the heats were Russ­ian Evge­ny Se­dov (23.92), Jones (24.23), Josa (24.31), Bergmann (24.36), Ya­sue (24.38) and Ar­gen­tine San­ti­a­go Gras­si in 24.52 while Carter's coun­try­man, Joshua Ro­many qual­i­fied for his first semi­fi­nal of the games with a 12th place fin­ish in 24.69, a per­son­al best time.In Carter's pre­lim­i­nary heat ef­fort, not on­ly did he smash his own 15-17 na­tion­al record of 24.53, but oblit­er­at­ed the open record of 24.36 sec­onds which was pre­vi­ous­ly held by dec­o­rat­ed na­tion­al but­ter­fly swim­mer and World Se­nior Cham­pi­onship com­peti­tor, Joshua Mc Leod. Carter's swim was al­so 0.26 sec­onds off the World Ju­niors Cham­pi­onship record.In the 50m but­ter­fly, Carter was the fifth best in 24.16 be­hind Lynch (24.04), Co­et­zee (24.11), Josa (24.11), Margevi­cius (24.15) but ahead of Jones (24.18), Bergmann (24.22) and Ya­sue (24.34) while Ro­many was 13th in 24.78 and did not ad­vance.

Pri­or to his his­toric sil­ver splash Carter of the Davie Nordie club was again in su­perb form clock­ing 49.93 sec­onds in the 100 freestyle to claim an­oth­er new na­tion­al record in the 15-17 age group,.

It was the fifth fastest time of the pre­lim­i­nar­ies be­hind Aussie Luke Per­cy (49.33), USA's Caeleb Dres­sel (49.48), an­oth­er Aussie Re­gan Leong (49.68) and Poland's Se­bastien Sz­cepan­s­ki (49.90) while com­pa­tri­ot Ro­many clocked 51.11 to be the 16th and fi­nal semi­fi­nal qual­i­fiers, 0.02 sec­onds ahead of Ital­ian An­drea D'Ar­ri­go.

I am now fo­cused on train­ing for the US Ju­nior Na­tion­als in North Car­oli­na in De­cem­ber, so I have to get some more train­ing in a short course (yards) pool. I may spend a few months in Flori­da be­fore this meet to be well pre­pared.The oth­er lo­cal swim­mers in ac­tion Ty­la Mar­tin, Kristin Julien and Jonathan Ramkissoon did not get past the pre­lim­i­nary round of their re­spec­tive events.Mar­tin was 29th over­all in the girls 100m but­ter­fly in one minute, 04.08 sec­onds while Julien was 33rd in the girls 50m freestyle in 27.28, and Ramkissoon, 38th in the boys 50m breast­stroke in 29.98.Team head coach Franz Hug­gins, who has been train­ing both Carter and Ro­many since they were 11 years-old was al­so gen­er­al­ly sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of the rest of the team,The Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T ex­tend­ed heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to Dy­lan Carter on his sil­ver medal in the fi­nals of the 50m but­ter­fly event. An as­so­ci­a­tion state­ment said Carter has been re­ward­ed for his dili­gence and dis­ci­pline and con­tin­ues to blos­som un­der the guid­ance of his par­ents and coach­es as all in the fra­ter­ni­ty con­tin­ue to lend un­wa­ver­ing sup­port.Anil Roberts, Min­is­ter of Sport, and al­so the coach of Olympic and dou­ble World Cham­pi­onship medal­list George Bovell III was in high praise of the 16-year-old swim­mer, and said, "I ad­mire the con­sis­ten­cy Dy­lan has shown through­out the meet as well as his tenac­i­ty in go­ing for a medal in the 50m but­ter­fly with a bril­liant swim.To­day, the en­tire team jour­neys to the swim­ming com­plex to cheer Ty­la Mar­tin who will be swim­ming in the 200 freestyle pre­lim­i­nary event.