Dylan Carter Completes Sprint Trifecta En Route to Overall World Cup Crown

2022 FINA WORLD CUP – INDIANAPOLIS

Dylan Carter completed his sprint trifecta with his third Triple Crown — and ninth gold medal in nine races at this year’s World Cup series — in the 50 butterfly on Saturday night in Indianapolis. 

Carter clocked a time of 21.99, just .01 seconds off his personal best from the 2021 Short Course World Championships last December. The 26-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago reached the wall just .14 seconds behind the world record set shared by Brazil’s Nicholas Santos and Hungary’s Szebasztian Szabo

MEN’S 50 BUTTERFLY – FINALS

PODIUM:

  1. Dylan Carter (TTO) – 21.99 US Open
  2. Chad Le Clos (RSA) – 22.77
  3. Marius Kusch (GER) – 22.46

Carter’s swim marked a new U.S. Open record, taking down the previous mark of 22.06 posted by Caeleb Dressel in 2019. In the process, he earned 19.6 points to up his total to 172.6, which beat out Nic Fink (172.3) and South African Chad le Clos (166.3) for the overall crown. Along with bragging rights, Carter took home $142,000 from the Indianapolis stop alone from his three Triple Crowns, $12,000 meet title, and $100,000 overall crown.

“I am so happy — I am over the moon,” Carter said. “The pressure really started to mount this weekend, but I really felt like I could do it. I think it is massive for Trinidad and Tobago. The Olympics and World Championships is about who is best on that day, but the World Cup is about who is better for an extended period of time. It is really a phenomenal feat of not just fast swimming, but endurance. It is a big step for our sport in the Caribbean.”

FINA World Cup Men’s Final Top 10

  1. Dylan Carter, Trinidad and Tobago, 172.6
  2. Nic Fink, USA, 172.3
  3. Chad le Clos, South Africa, 166.3
  4. Shaine Casas, USA, 164.9
  5. Matthew Sates, South Africa, 154.1
  6. Kyle Chalmers, Australia, 152.1
  7. Thomas Ceccon, Italy, 144.8
  8. Danas Rapsys, Lithuania, 137.1
  9. Kieran Smith, USA, 134.1
  10. Javier Acevedo, Canada, 133.9

“It was a goal, but I can’t say I was expecting it,” Carter said of his perfect 9-for-9 run. “But I mean, I had a really good meet run, so I’m really, really proud of that.”

“These are some of my best friends, Chad and Marius here,” he added of the silver and bronze medalists. “Marius and I lived together prior to the Tokyo Olympics, so we’re really, really close. It’s so fun racing these guys every night.”

Carter’s performance is the fastest in the world this year ahead of the 22.21 posted by le Clos at the first stop of the World Cup in Berlin. 

“It is a massive step for me. I have always felt like I have had massive potential, but there was always something missing,” Carter said. “I came home after this summer and went to my local gym. The amount of people who asked me if I was going to retire — I swam good times but people thought I was done, that I was never going to break through. That really drove me and that is part of the results you see here.”

Carter called his recent run of dominance in the 50s his “second career” after previously specializing in longer-distance events. 

“I have always swam up to 200, but I always wanted to have a bit of a second career, which is the 50s,” he said. “I always had a good 50 fly. It was always good for a 200 guy. I wanted to put it together and see what I could do. Training in Trinidad, I am training on my own a lot. It’s fun. It is a lot more fun than training for the 200. Swimming in a way that is sustainable and when you are happy, that is when you can see your career in front of you.”

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Ragnar
1 year ago

Really like how he put it “Olympics and World Championships is about who is best on that day, but the World Cup is about who is better for an extended period of time.”

Obviously Olympic sports are mainly once a year championship things, but who can sustain it over weeks/months in these meets make it more of “who can show up to work and perform everytime” like pro baseball or rugby or soccer, or even a regular job. If Dylan Carter or Nick Fink had a jersey I’d rock it. Super cool stuff, and glad they’re getting paid.

CasualSwimmer
1 year ago

Shouldn’t it be a sprint “quadri/tetra/four fecta” rather than a trifecta ? Dylan has done an amazing job but the 50 breast is still part of the 50s ! He’s not quite done in the sprint ing domain

Demarrit Steenbergen
1 year ago

Beata, Dylan, and Nic all sitting pretty with 6 figures

Ghost
Reply to  Demarrit Steenbergen
1 year ago

It has to hurt a little bit for Nic to lose 100k by .3

PK Doesn't Like His Long Name
Reply to  Ghost
1 year ago

Prolly hurts more for Shaine to lose 85k by one terrible prelims swim.

JimmySwim
Reply to  PK Doesn't Like His Long Name
1 year ago

That’s not really true, though. He missed two finals in Germany.

Even if he had qualified, because Carter got so many FINA points, Casas would have needed to win and get at least 964 points for his third event in Germany. Out of the 11 finals he swam at the world cup, he only got that many points twice, and Germany was his slowest stop.

Seems pretty unlikely he would have won it overall anyway tbh.

PK Doesn’t Like His Long Name
Reply to  JimmySwim
1 year ago

This doesn’t look correct to me. He lost by less than 8 points, simply making the final in the 100 IM and winning it with a 900 point swim would have gained him more than 8 points.

Admin
Reply to  PK Doesn’t Like His Long Name
1 year ago

Only best 3 swims count. So making the 100 IM final and winning with a 900 point swim would’ve gotten him 19.0 points…but it would have replaced an 10.9 point swim. So a 19.0 point swim replacing a 10.9-point swim means is a net of +8.1 points. He was 7.7 points behind Carter. So yes, winning the 100 IM in Berlin with a 900 point swim would have won him the series.

So if he did what he did in Indy, he wins. That’s not a guarantee. He was a touch faster overall in Indy than in Berlin, and Thomas Ceccon was racing in Berlin. But Casas would have been the likely winner, that’s for sure.

PK Doesn't Like His Long Name
Reply to  Braden Keith
1 year ago

Given that he went 51.0 twice and Ceccon went 51.5 to win in Berlin, he had some room to play with. (And fwiw 19.0-10.9 is 8.1, so he really needed to win the race for sure.)

Gheko
1 year ago

Well deserved Dylan!🥇🥊🥇

BearlyBreathing
1 year ago

I have never seen Dylan Carter and the Gigachad meme guy in the same room at the same time.

About Riley Overend

Riley is an associate editor interested in the stories taking place outside of the pool just as much as the drama between the lane lines. A 2019 graduate of Boston College, he arrived at SwimSwam in April of 2022 after three years as a sports reporter and sports editor at newspapers …

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