T&T swimmer Dylan Carter added the 100m freestyle silver medal to his 50m free bronze won on Friday when the second leg of this year’s FINA World Aquatics Swimming World Cup continued at the Athens Olympic Aquatic Centre in Greece on Saturday.
The winner of the bronze medal in the 100m freestyle in 48.73 seconds in Berlin last week, the 27-year-old Carter went one spot better when he touched the wall in 48.62 seconds, after a first-50m split of 23.51 for the silver medal behind Italian Thomas Ceccon who repeated as the champion in 48.36 with Australian Zac Incerti taking the bronze in 48.88.
Holland’s Stan Pijnenburg was fourth home in 49.11 followed by the Australian trio Dylan Andrea (49.21), Cody Simpson (49.22), and Maximillian Giuliani (49.30), and South African Pieter Coetze in 49.79.
In yesterday’s morning session, Carter who has now won two silver and two bronze over the first two legs and six events, raced home in 49.10 seconds to win the tenth and final heat ahead of Ceccon’s 49.14 and Pijnenburg (49.29) as the trio secured the second, third and fifth fastest qualifying times overall, behind Simpson who won heat eight in 48.99 and was joined in the final by countryman Giuliani (49.53), second in heat eight, but seventh fastest overall.
The other qualifiers to the final, Incerti (49.24), Andrea (49.40), and Coetze (49.80) were the top three swimmers in heat nine while USA-based T&T’s Graham Chatoor was second in heat two in 53.98, to finish 46th overall, and behind heat winner Qatar’s Mohamed Mahmoud (53.03) who placed 36th.
Chatoor also contested the men’s 800m freestyle and was eighth fastest in eight minutes, 27.67 seconds with Norway’s Henrik Christiansen (7:51.92 minutes) to erase Gregorio Paltrinieri‘s World Cup record from 2015 by just over five seconds while Greece’s Dimitrios Markos (7:58.16), and Japan’s Kaito Tabuchi (7:58.70) finished second and third respectively.
On Friday, Carter made amends for his last placed finish in the Berlin-opening leg of the World Cup 50m freestyle final in 23.79 seconds, when he secured the bronze medal in 22.16 seconds, to trail American Michael Andrew who won gold in 21.96, and Australian Isaac Cooper, the winner in Berlin, who took silver this time around in 22.07.
The other finishers in Friday’s 50m freestyle final were Hungary’s Szebasztian Szabo in 22.27, Japan’s Shinri Shioura in 22.32, Holland’s Kenzo Simons in 22.34, Norway’s Nicholas Lia in 22.50, and another Dutch entrant Stan Pijnenburg in 22.55.
This after Carter won heat seven in the morning heats in 22.25 with Cooper and Holland’s Sean Niewold, joint second in 22.49 to be the second and joint eighth fastest qualifiers overall. And in the swim-off for the final spot in the gold medal splash, Cooper won 22.24, to beat Niewold’s 22.39.
Also on Friday, Chatoor placed 12th in the men’s 400m freestyle with a time of four minutes, 02.83 seconds after he placed sixth in the fourth and final heat.
The top qualifiers in the heat were Christiansen (3:52.07 minutes), USA’s Kieran Smith (3:55.02 mins), and New Zealand’s Zac Reid (3:55.97) the top three qualifiers overall, while Markos (3:55.51), and USA’s Joshua Brown (3:56.90) also touched the wall ahead of Chatoor in the seventh and tenth best times.
A recent three-time gold medal winner at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games along with a silver and bronze medal, Carter is expected to face the starter from 2.34 am (T&T time) in the seventh of nine men’s 50m butterfly against Australians Cooper and Ben Armbruster, USA’s Trenton Julian, Philipine’s Jarod Hatch, Denmark’s Rasmus Nickelsen, Lia and Niewold with the hope of improving on his silver medal showing in Berlin last week when he clocked 23.17 in the final.
In the 200m freestyle, Chatoor also swims in heat seven of eight from 4.16 am (T&T time) alongside Christiansen, Dimitrios Negris, Markos, Lithuania’s Danas Rapsys, Hungary’s Richard Marton, Reid, and Great Britain’s Michael Faris Ripper.
