T&T’s Dylan Carter and his London Roar teammates continued their dominance of the men’s 4x100 metres freestyle at the 2021 International Swimming League with yet another victory, on Thursday’s opening day of the fourth Match Day playoff semifinal in Eindhoven, Holland.
Buoyed by their Match Day Four semifinal playoff win last weekend, two-time Olympian the 25-year-old Carter swimming the lead-off leg from lane five at the Pieter Van Den Hoogenband Stadium for the London Roar, found himself in the second spot at the end of the first leg with the T&T swimmer's 46.39 seconds, only bettered by Energy Standard’s Kliment Kolesnikov’s 46.24.
However, on the second-leg, Zac Incerti’s clocked 46.87 which saw the Roar slip to third with a combined 1:33.26, behind LA Current, which jumped from third (46.40) boosted by Apostolos Christou’s 46.40 for a combined 1:32.39, and Energy Standard’s 1:33.17 after Adam Barrett’s 46.93.
But on the third leg, the London Roar made their move thanks to Duncan Scott’s sizzling 46.09 to reclaim the second spot with a 2:19.35 timing, only behind LA Current’s 2:19.19 powered by Kristian Gkolomeev’s 46.80 while DC Trident replaced Energy Standard in third behind Zach Harting’s 46.55 with a combined 2;20.70.
It was still anybody’s race at the start of the fourth and final leg, but in the end, London Roar with in-form Australian Kyle Chalmers clocking an electrifying 45.12 after a split of 21.37, both the fastest event showed their class with a combined 3:04.47 for gold in the fastest time of the ISL this season, and 36 valuable points.
The LA Current ended in the second spot in 3:05.38 for 14 points while DC Trident was third in 3:08.42 and 12 points, and Energy Standard, fourth in 3:08.59 for ten points.
However, in the 20th and final event on the first day, Carter swam anchor as part of the 4x100 medley relay team which also comprised Christian Diener, Sam Williamson and Vini Lanza for the fifth spot in 3:24.56, just behind their London Roar ‘A’ teammates of Guilherme Guido, Ross Murdoch, Chalmers and Scott who placed fourth in 3:24.16.
Energy Standard took gold in 3:21.36 with LA Current (3:23.66) second, and DC Trident, third in 3:23.81.
In the men’s 50m freestyle, Carter had hoped to join Olympic medal winner George Bovell III (20.90 & 20.94) as the lone T&T swimmers to go under the 21-second barrier in the event.
However, the California-born T&T swimmer had to settle for the fourth spot in a very high-quality field in 21.14, just off his personal best of 21.09 he sat last weekend in another fourth-place finish.
His London Roar team, Australian three-time Olympic medallist Chalmers (20.82) fought off the challenge of Energy Standard’s Ben Proud (20.86) with his characteristic back-end speed to propel himself to the wall 0.04 ahead for the victory while LA Current’s Gkolomeev took bronze in 21.06.
The pair of Christou (LA Current) and Ryan Hoffer (DC Trident), both clocked 21.32 for joint fifth spot with Energy Standard’s Andrey Zhilkin, seventh in 21.58, and DC Trident’s Sergey Shevtsov who placed eighth in 21.72.
Jamaican Alia Atkinson also contributed significantly to London Roar’s first-day points tally as she was won individual gold in the women’s 50m breaststroke in 29.18 seconds and was part of the gold medal 4x100 medley women’s relay winning team, while she also had a sixth-place finish in the 100m butterfly in 57.32.
Overall, it was very productive for the London Roar as they look to lock up a top-three finish over the two days of competition to cement a spot in the four-team Final, December 3 and 4 at the same venue.
Going into Friday’s second and final day of the Match Day playoff Carter, who has now taken his ISL season medal haul to 17 (seven gold, six silver, and four bronze) and the London Roar leads with 280 points, with Energy Standard second with 264, followed by LA Current, a distant third with 221.6, and DC Trident, fourth with 141.5.
Currently, the trio of Energy Standard, London Roar, and Cali Condors are in a three-way tie at the top of the standings with seven points each from two of three semifinal match days while fourth-placed LA Current has six points.
The quartet of Toronto Titans (five), Aqua Centurions (three), DC Trident (three), and Team Iron (two) complete the table with one Match Day left for each team.
And with four points being awarded to the overall Match Day winners, three for the second spot, two for third, and one for fourth, the London Roar just needs to complete a top-three finish of the four teams to be assured of their finals post, well within their reach with only 19 events left Friday.
So far in the second stage of the 2021 ISL, Carter has now won eight medals in the semifinal playoffs, inclusive of three relay gold medals, three silver, and two bronze.
On Saturday (November 20), Carter won gold in the 4x100 metres freestyle relay, and silver in the 4x100m medley relay, while on Sunday he got bronze in both the 100m freestyle and 4x100m mixed medley relay events as London Roar topped the table.
The four medals followed his return of one gold and two silver medals in the second Match Day semifinal playoff in which his team was edged out by LA Current for the top spot.
When the preliminary ten rounds of competition concluded last month in Naples, Italy, Carter, T&T's first-ever Commonwealth Games swimming medal winner, had bagged nine medals in total, four gold, three silver, and two bronze which helped his team to 13 points from a maximum of 16 and third spot on the ten-club standings to be among the automatic semifinal qualifiers.
