National swimmer Dylan Carter's quest for a medal at the 2023 FINA World Aquatics Championship continued without much success at the Marine Messe Fukuoka, Japan on Wednesday.
This was after the 27-year-old two-time Olympian ended in the eighth and final spot in the men's 100 metres freestyle semifinal one for the 16th position overall in 48.60 seconds, swimming from lane two.
The winner of the semifinal heat was Hungarian Nandor Nemeth in 47.26 for the fourth-best semifinal time, and he was joined in the final by Romanian sensation David Popovici who clocked 47.66, Cayman Islands’ Jordan Crooks’ 47.71, France’s Maxime Grousset in 47.87, and USA’s Jack Alexy in 48.06 to secure the eighth and final spot for the gold medal splash.
Korean Sunwoo Hwang touched in 48.08 for the sixth spot in semifinal one followed by Brazilian Guilherme Santos in 48.18 and Carter.
The other qualifiers to the final were the trio of semifinal two swimmers, Great Britain’s Matthew Richards who topped the list of qualifiers in 47.47, followed by Australian Kyle Chalmers in 47.52, and China’s Zhanie Pan, in 47.61.
The quintet of Portugal’s Diego Matos (48.13), Flynn Southam (48.15), Italian Alessandro Miressi (48.21), Canada’s Josh Liendo Edwards (48.22), and Serbian Andrej Barna (48.43) were the other competitors in semifinal two.
In Wednesday's morning session, Carter placed third in heat 11 of 12 in 48.16 for the tenth best time overall, and behind the duo o Pan (47.84), and Edwards (48.03) with Southam (48.18), Nemeth, and Matos both in 48.21, and Santos in 48.34 all advancing.
Richards was again the fastest qualifier in winning heat ten in 47.59 with Chalmers (47.71), Crooks (47.77), and Miressi (48.14) the other qualifiers in the third, fourth, and ninth spots respectively.
Alexy won heat 12 in 47.68 for the second fastest time overall with Popovici (47.90), Grousset (48.06), and the duo of Hwang and Barna, who both in 48.20, to secure the sixth, eighth, and joint 12th.
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.
In the two-man race, Carter got to the wall in 23.26 seconds, while Bucher won 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 Grousset who touched the wall in 22.72 to take 0.02 seconds off his own French record of 22.74, which was clocked in preliminary heats, to move up to eight all-time in the event 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.
Carter, a treble gold medal winner at the recently held Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador will next compete in the men’s 50m freestyle on Thursday in the last of 13 heats from lane eight.
Cherelle Thompson, a bronze medallist in El Salvador makes her first entrance in the women’s 50m butterfly on Thursday in heat three of seven against St Vincent and The Grenadines’ Anhernie Greene, Ghana’s Nubia Adjei, Aruba’s Chloe Farro, St Lucian Mikaili Charlemagne, Bahamian Rhanishka Gibbs, Uganda’s Tara Ann Naluwoza, Pakistan’s Bisma Khan, and Antigua and Barbuda’s Bianca Mitchell.
