National swimmers and Olympians, Dylan Carter and Cherelle Thompson will both contest their final event in the 2023 FINA World Aquatics Championship held at the Marine Messe Fukuoka, Japan on Friday night.
Carter, a multiple World Short Course and Long Course medal winner will be in action in the men’s 50m backstroke heats tonight, and Thompson will face the starter in women’s 50m freestyle also during Friday's programme.
In the men’s 50m backstroke, Carter lines up against Mongolia’s Erkhes Enkhtur, Barbadian Jack Kirby, Luxembourg’s Remi Fabiani, Ireland’s Homer Abbasi, Mexico’s Diego Camacho Salgado, Thailand’s Tonnam Kanteemool, Hong Kong’s Shiu Yue Lau, US Virgin Islands’ Maximillian Wilson, and Dominica’s Warren Adam Lawrence.
Thompson, 31, will compete before Carter, in heat seven of 11 in the women’s 50m freestyle from 9.44 pm. She will come up against Anicka Delgado of Ecuador, Uganda’s Kirabo Namutebi, Cayman Islands’ Jillian Crooks, Algerian Amel Melih, Bermuda’s Maddy Moore, Chinese Taipei’s Mei-Chien Huang, Latvia’s Leva Maluka, Aruba’s Elisabeth Timmer, and Venezuelan Lismar Lyon.
On Wednesday, Carter, 27, a two-time Olympian ended in the eighth and final spot in semifinal one of the men’s 100m freestyle for the 16th position overall in 48.60 seconds, swimming from lane two.
Earlier on in the morning session, Carter placed third in heat 11 of 12 in 48.16 for the tenth-best time overall.
Last night, both T&T swimmers were also in action with Carter, a treble gold medal winner at the recently held Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador contesting the men’s 50m freestyle heats, and Thompson, a bronze medalist in El Salvador makes in the women’s 50m butterfly.
When the swimming segment of the championship began last weekend, Carter, a former University of Southern California standout missed out on qualification to the men’s 50 meters butterfly final after losing a semifinal swim-off to Austria’s Simon Bucher on Sunday.
This was after Carter got to the wall in 23.26 seconds, while Bucher won the two-man swim-off in 23.10.
In the semifinals, Carter swimming from lane five in the second event, was joint third with Bucher in 23.05 for the eighth-best times, as both swimmers finished behind semifinal heat winner Maxime Grousset who touched the wall in 22.72 while Italian Thomas Ceccon, who eventually won the gold medal, was second in the heat in 22.92 for the joint third best time along with Great Britain’s JTT Peters.
When the preliminary heat took place on Saturday night, Carter clocked the third fastest time overall at 22.89 while placing second in the eighth of ten heats, with Grousset taking the top spot in the heat and overall, in 22.74 while Egypt’s Abdelrahman Sameh was third in the heat and fourth best overall in 23.10, Bucher fourth in the heat and 13th overall in 23.32, and Edwards, joint 15th in 23.36 with Bulgarian Josif Miladinov.
