T&T's Dy­lan Carter swam to his third sil­ver medal of the 2024 Mare Nos­trum Se­ries when he end­ed in the sec­ond spot in the men's 50 me­tres but­ter­fly A-Fi­nal at the 45th In­ter­na­tion­al Barcelona -Mare Nos­trum City Tro­phy in Sant An­dreu, Barcelona, on Thurs­day (May 30).

The 28-year-old swim­ming out of lane two in the eight-man field raced home in 23.36 sec­onds, to fin­ish be­hind Nether­lands' Nyls Ko­rstan­je who swam to the gold medal in 23.29 with Hun­gar­i­an Sze­bas­t­ian Sz­abo tak­ing the bronze in 23.38.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the A-fi­nal were Sin­ga­pore's Quah Zheng Wen (23.56), Nether­lands' Thomas Ver­ho­even (23.58), Slo­va­kian Ti­bor Tis­tan (23.71), Spain's Al­ber­to Lozano Ma­teos (23.93), and Den­mark's Casper Puh­haardin 23.96.

Ear­li­er on in the morn­ing heats for the men's 50m but­ter­fly, Carter swim­ming from lane four in heat five of sev­en, raced to the wall in 23.96 for the fifth-fastest time over­all, and sec­ond in the heat to Ver­ho­even who won in 23.67 for the sec­ond-quick­est qual­i­fy­ing time to the fi­nal, with Pug­gaard, third in 24.24 for the eighth and fi­nal fastest qual­i­fy­ing time to the A-Fi­nal.

Ko­rstan­je won heat six in 23.35 to be the top qual­i­fi­er with the duo of Zheng Weng (24,08), and Tis­tan (24.09) al­so qual­i­fy­ing from the heat to the gold medal splash as the sixth and sev­enth fastest qual­i­fiers re­spec­tive­ly while Sz­abo (23.75), and Ma­teos (23.84) qual­i­fied from heat sev­en with the third and fourth fastest times.

How­ev­er in the 100m freestyle heats which was con­test­ed just two events af­ter the 50m but­ter­fly, Carter had to set­tle for the tenth-best time over­all to qual­i­fy for the B-Fi­nal af­ter he got home in 49.53 sec­onds, to trail Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea's Sun­woo Hwang (49.11), and Japan's Kat­suhi­ro Mat­sumo­to (49.19) who se­cured their spots in the fi­nal with the sec­ond and fourth fastest qual­i­fy­ing times.

Tak­ing the top seed was Olympic mul­ti-medal­ist Flo­rent Man­au­dou of France, with the 33-year-old touch­ing in 48.78 af­ter he opened in 23.45 and closed in 25.33, his first time un­der the 49-sec­ond thresh­old this sea­son in win­ning the tenth and fi­nal heat, ahead of Ro­man­ian David Popovi­ci (49.20), Ser­bia's An­drej Bar­na (49.44), and Great Britain's Ja­cob Whit­tle (49.46) who were the fifth, sev­enth and eighth fastest qual­i­fiers.

The next-clos­est to Man­au­dou was Tues­day night’s 200m freestyle sil­ver medal­ist and reign­ing world cham­pi­on in that event, Sun­woo while Italy’s Thomas Cec­con round­ed out the top three per­form­ers in 49.15 in win­ning heat nine fol­lowed his coun­try­man Alessan­dro Mires­si (49.42) for the third, and sixth best times over­all. 

On Wednes­day (May 29), Carter, a Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia grad­u­ate and two-time Olympian missed out on adding to his medal tal­ly when he swam to fifth spot in the men’s 50 me­tres freestyle A-Fi­nal  in 22.32 sec­onds, his fastest time in the event in the se­ries so far.

Tak­ing the gold medal was French star and Olympic medal­list Flo­rent Man­au­dou, 33, who cruised to vic­to­ry in 21.89, dip­ping un­der the Olympic Qual­i­fy­ing time while Ital­ian sprint­er Alessan­dro Mires­si and Dutch star Ken­zo Si­mons tied for the sil­ver medal in 22.24.

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 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 Hong Kong's Ian Yen­tou Ho was sec­ond in the heat in 22.30, and third best over­all.

Last week­end (May 25-26), Carter won two sil­ver and a bronze medal at the open­ing leg of the Mare Nos­trum swim tour in Canet-en-Rous­sil­lon, France.

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.

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.

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.

The third and fi­nal leg of the Mare Nos­trum meets splash­es off in Mona­co, France on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day.