Standout swimmer Dylan Carter will remain in Amsterdam for a few days then join the Brazil national team in Dubai for a few more before heading to Abu Dhabi for the 15th FINA World Short Course (25m) World Championships.
Carter, the 25-year-old Team TTO swimmer is coming off a successful International Swimming League (ISL) season three in which he tallied to 23 medals, including seven gold, eight silver and eight bronze over the preliminary round, playoffs and finals, with 14 coming in the last two stages — three gold, five silver and six bronze.
At the ISL final that concluded Saturday, he won one silver in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay and two bronze in the 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly events. His efforts assisted his London Roar team to a third place finish behind two-time champions Energy Standard and dethroned champions Cali Condors. His former team LA Current finished fourth and last for the third consecutive year.
On Sunday, the 2018 Commonwealth Games silver medallist departed the ISL competition venue, the Pieter Van Den Hoogenband Swimming Stadium for the Netherlands National Training Centre in Amsterdam where he will be under the care of national coach Mark Faber, also the coach of Dutch Olympians Kira Toussaint and two-time Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Arno Kamminga.
“...(I) got a few days off before I get back in training for World Short Course,” Carter said, “(It was) really fun night last night (Saturday), third place finish, my best finish so far. Obviously I think in full force, we could challenge for the title but we were kind of knocked back by a last-minute injury to one of our best swimmers Kira Toussaint.”
Carter will soon join the Brazilians in Dubai for a few more days ahead of the December 16-21 FINA competition.
Toussaint’s withdrawal on the eve of the final was a big blow but Carter was still satisfied with the third place finish, capping off a season in which he broke national records in the 100m freestyle (46.39) and 50m butterfly (22.25) while posting several personal bests, including in the 50m freestyle (21.09).
“I think I had a great season. I am proud of how I swam and how the team rallied together and we fought to the end. It’s been a really, really long, tough season on the back of Olympics, straight into Naples (ISL preliminary venue) and then here. A lot of us have done a lot racing, so to have rallied together one last time as a group, to have put up a third place performance, I am pretty proud of it and I think that I really feel like I had a great time on the London Roar and I really enjoyed my time on this new team,” Carter said.
He added the Roar’s Commonwealth culture and squad was a better personal fit than his previous USA-based team, the LA Current.
“So I am enjoying it and hopefully, next year we will be back and ready to roll for season four and back with the London Roar,” Carter expressed.
Carter was one of four swimmers selected and ratified by the Amateur Swimming Association of Trinidad and Tobago (ASATT) to attend the world meet and will be joined by Tokyo 2020 Olympian Cherelle Thompson, Nikoli Blackman and Ornella Walker.