T&T two-time Olympic swim­mer Dy­lan Carter missed out on adding to his three medals to­day in the three-leg Mare Nos­trum Se­ries when he swam to fifth spot in the men's 50 me­tres freestyle A-Fi­nal on the open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion at the 45th In­ter­na­tion­al Barcelona -Mare Nos­trum City Tro­phy in Sant An­dreu, Barcelona on Wednes­day.

The 28-year-old swim­ming out of lane two in the eight-man fi­nal got to the wall in 22.32 sec­onds, his fastest time in the event in the se­ries so far, but it was on­ly good for the fifth po­si­tion as he con­tin­ues his prepa­ra­tions for the up­com­ing Paris Olympic Games.

Tak­ing the gold medal was French star Flo­rent Man­au­dou who cruised to vic­to­ry over a strong field of proven in­ter­na­tion­al stars. The 33-year-old, who has medalled at the past three Olympics in this event, surged to the wall in 21.89, dip­ping un­der the Olympic Qual­i­fy­ing time and set­ting him­self up nice­ly for next month’s French Tri­als while his time was al­so a lit­tle faster than his com­pa­tri­ot Maxime Grouset’s time of 21.92 from Canet, last week­end.

Ital­ian sprint­er Alessan­dro Mires­si and Dutch star Ken­zo Si­mons tied for the sil­ver medal in 22.24, which, like Man­adou’s, was faster than last week­end’s 22.37 sil­ver-win­ning time.

It was a tight race for the mi­nor medals as sec­ond through sixth (there was a tie for sixth) were sep­a­rat­ed by less than a tenth of a sec­ond. Hun­gar­i­an star Kristof Mi­lak was just shy of the medal’s plac­ing fourth in 22.25 fol­lowed by Carter, Hong Kong's Ian Yen­tou Ho and Hun­gar­i­an Sze­baszt­ian Sz­abo, both clock­ing 22.33, and Ar­genti­na's Gui­do Buscaglia who touched the wall in 22.48.

In the morn­ing heats, Carter lined up in the 13th and fi­nal heat from lane five and got to the wall in 22.39 sec­onds to fin­ish third and fifth fastest over­all, be­hind Man­au­dou who won heat 13 in 22.14 for the top time in the heats over­all while Ho was sec­ond in the heat in 22.30, and third best over­all.

The oth­er qual­i­fiers to the fi­nal were heat 12 win­ner, Mires­si who clocked 22.28 for the sec­ond fastest qual­i­fy­ing time, with Si­mons (22.33), and Mi­lak (22.44) al­so ad­vanc­ing as the fourth, and sixth-best qual­i­fiers while Buscaglia (22.48) won heat ten and Sz­abo topped heat 11 in 22.52 to be the eighth and fi­nal qual­i­fi­er to the A-Fi­nal, just ahead of Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea's Yuchan Ji.

Thurs­day, Carter will com­pete in both the men's 50m but­ter­fly, and 100m freestyle events with the aim of se­cur­ing sil­ver­ware to add to his two sil­ver and bronze from the first stop of the three-leg Mare Nos­trum se­ries in Canet, France last week­end.

In the 50m but­ter­fly, Carter will line up in lane four of heat five of sev­en against the Den­mark quar­tet of Fred­erik Moller, Casper Pug­gaard, To­bias Dan and Malthe Lin­de­blad along with Nether­lands' Thomas Ver­ho­even, Julien Henx of Lux­em­bourg, and Ukraine's An­drii Gov­orov.

In the 100m freestyle, Carter will com­pete in the eighth of ten heats against Ital­ians Lu­ca Dot­ta and Car­los D'Am­bro­sio, Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea pair Ho­joon Lee and Yooyeon Lee, Japan's Kono­suke Yanag­i­mo­to, Slo­va­kian Matej Dusa, Ro­man­ian Patrick-Se­bas­t­ian Dinu, and Hun­gar­i­an Adam Jas­zo.

Last week­end, Carter con­tin­ued his prepa­ra­tions for the Paris Olympic Games in Ju­ly/Au­gust by grab­bing two sil­ver and a bronze medal at the open­ing leg of the Mare Nos­trum swim tour in Canet-en-Rous­sil­lon, France, last week­end.

On Sat­ur­day in the men’s 50m freestyle A-Fi­nal, Carter was the sec­ond fastest to the wall in 23.37 sec­onds to trail Gros­set who won gold in 21.92 while Ho had to set­tle for the bronze in 22.38 fol­lowed by Hun­gary’s Sze­bas­t­ian Sz­abo (22.41), Sin­ga­pore’s Eu-Jin-Jonathan Tan (22.50), Spain’s Os­car Pas­cual (22.71), Hol­land’s Stan Pi­j­nen­burg (22.75), and Spain’s Gui­do Buscaglia (22.75).

In the morn­ing heats, Gros­set al­so had the fastest qual­i­fy­ing time of 22.24 fol­lowed by Carter in 22.49, in win­ning the sixth of eight heats with Ukraine’s An­drii Gov­orov sec­ond in the heat in 22.68.

Carter re­turned to the pool on Sun­day and won a bronze in the 50m but­ter­fly A-fi­nal, and a sil­ver in the 100m freestyle A-fi­nal.

In the 50m but­ter­fly A-Fi­nal, Carter got to the wall in 23.50 to fin­ish be­hind Hol­land’s Nyls Ko­rstan­je who raced to the gold medal in 23.22 while Sz­abo took sil­ver in 23.47.

When the pre­lim­i­nary heats took place in the morn­ing ses­sion on Sun­day, Ko­rstan­je won heat sev­en in 23.40 and qual­i­fied as the fastest swim­mer to the fi­nal while the trio of Carter (23.46), Sz­abo (23.66) and Ver­ho­even (23.85) qual­i­fied as the top three fin­ish­ers in heat six for the sec­ond, third and fourth fastest qual­i­fi­ca­tion times.

In the men’s 100m freestyle, Gros­set won an­oth­er gold with a time of 38.71, with Carter tak­ing his sec­ond sil­ver medal in three events, in 48.97 with Japan’s Kat­suhi­ro Mat­sumo­to, third in 49.13.

French­man Gros­set, the 2023 World Cham­pi­onships gold medal­list in the men’s 100m but­ter­fly al­so qual­i­fied best in the morn­ing heats with a mark of 48.80 in win­ning the tenth while Carter was third over­all in the heats in 49.55.

Fol­low­ing to­day's sec­ond and fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion at the Club Nat­ació Sant An­dreu in Barcelona, the ac­tion moves to the third and fi­nal stop in Mona­co, France on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day.