With Three Records and Skins Success, LA Current’s Dylan Carter Rounding into Form
![Dylan Carter (photo: Mike Lewis)](https://vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dylan-Carter-LA-Current-ISL-by-Mike-Lewis-D5D_1215-1-1024x683.jpg)
The pleasant surprise on the broadcast of the International Swimming League’s Match 10 was notable as Dylan Carter advanced in each echelon of the skins race for the LA Current Tuesday.
In his usually modest way, Carter may have been a little surprised, too. But that didn’t mean what the Trinidad & Tobago sprinter did in a sensational final match of the regular season wasn’t part of the plan.
Carter, who trains with Team Elite in San Diego under LA Current coach David Marsh, considers himself lucky to have the same guidance in the Budapest bubble. The plan to speed up meet by meet, in the first competition since the spring, was installed by Marsh from the get-go. And it’s paying dividends for Carter and the Current.
“It feels real good,” Carter told Swimming World from the bubble Tuesday night. “My main goal coming into this season was to get better throughout and take it race by race, so I’m really proud of myself being able to do that consistently as we’ve gone along. It hasn’t been any headline-worthy swimming until today, but behind the scenes, it was sort of a gradual chipping away that led to today. I’m pretty happy with that.”
The headlines have come with work, as have three personal-bests in Match 10 alone. Carter started Monday by finishing seventh in the 100 butterfly, a best time of 50.70 seconds, though he joked that it didn’t count quite as much being his first time swimming it over short-course meters. Still counted for a T&T record, though, roundly taking down Joshua McLeod’s standard of 52.81 from 2012.
Carter was second in the 100 backstroke in 50.11 on Day 2, another national record. Most impressive was his performance in the Current’s 400 free relay, which finished eighth. But Carter had the B squad out first in 46.56, first among lead-off legs (beating Aqua Centurions’ Alessandro Miressi and the Cali Condors’ Kacper Majchrzak) and eighth out of 32 swimmers in the race.
![Dylan Carter (photo: Mike Lewis)](https://vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dylan-Carter-LA-Current-ISL-by-Mike-Lewis-D5D_1157-scaled.jpg)
LA Current’s Dylan Carter, Photo Courtesy: Mike Lewis/ISL
The time was also a national record, unseating the 47.06 that five-time Olympian George Bovell set 16 years ago. It vaulted Carter from the 39th fastest time in the event this season to ninth.
That led to the skins, where the Current had control and chose backstroke to deploy the heat-seeking missile that is Ryan Murphy. Carter didn’t swim the event on Monday, with it falling just after the 400 free relay. Instead, Tomoe Hvas finished seventh for the Current, behind Murphy’s win, in 24.63.
Carter was more than a second faster in Round 1 of the backstroke skins, taking third in 23.28. He managed a 23.89 in the second round to make the final, an All-Current duel in which he finished second to Murphy, 24.18 to Carter’s 24.99.
“It was my first time in the skins and it was a lot of fun,” Dylan Carter said. “I had a good 100 back, had a good 100 free (Monday) and I felt pretty confident going into the skins knowing that I was starting to fire off. It’s always comforting to have a guy like Ryan Murphy on your team backing you up, and that gives you a little bit more leeway, a little more looseness behind the blocks. It was really cool to have Ryan there and to have David behind the blocks, it was a really comfortable situation for me and I think all those things came together for me to have a good performance.”
Entering the semifinals, Carter ranks ninth in ISL in both the 100 free and 100 back, 12th in the 50 back and 17th in the 100 fly. All three strokes are in play over 50 or 100 meters, and he can even stretch to a 200 free, a valuable weapon for Marsh in planning a lineup.
Carter attributes the improvement to the training environment. It’s not just Marsh for continuity, Murphy to emulate and a handful of other Team Elite swimmers for comfort and familiarity. It’s having the best swimmers in the world around him every day. The balance between the immediate challenge of racing and Marsh’s long-term vision is paying dividends in both the short- and long-term.
“I think the ISL brings together the best athletes and the best swimmers in the world,” Dylan Carter said. “And I think I’ve made more changes in my stroke here than I have probably in the last year, just from being able to watch these guys and learn from them. …
“I think David is so important because he always brings the bigger picture into play and can focus on things long-term, whereas sometimes I can get caught up in, we’re swimmers and we like to race fast and we always want the next one to be, ‘let’s go all-in, let’s go really fast.’ I think that’s the perfect yin and yang between me and David. David is always a little bit more out there like, ‘OK, the ISL is important and we need to be swimming fast here, but also there’s a long-term goal.’”
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- ISL WEBSITE
- SEASON 2 SCHEDULE
- EUROPEAN ROSTERS
- AMERICAN ROSTERS
- TOKYO & TORONTO NEW ROSTERS
- CBS TV AGREEMENT
- MATCH ONE RESULTS (CONDORS, ENERGY, CURRENT, BREAKERS)
- MATCH TWO RESULTS (ROAR, IRON, TRIDENT, CENTURIONS)
- MATCH THREE RESULTS (CURRENT, FROG KINGS, TITANS, CENTURIONS)
- MATCH FOUR RESULTS (CONDORS, IRON, BREAKERS, TRIDENT)
- MATCH FIVE RESULTS (ROAR, CURRENT, FROG KINGS, TRIDENT)
- MATCH SIX RESULTS (ENERGY, TITANS, BREAKERS, CENTURIONS)
- MATCH SEVEN RESULTS (ENERGY, IRON, TITANS, TRIDENT)
- MATCH EIGHT RESULTS (CONDORS, ROAR, FROG KINGS, BREAKERS)
- MATCH NINE RESULTS (ENERGY, FROG KINGS, IRON, TITANS)
- MATCH TEN RESULTS (CONDORS, CURRENT, ROAR, CENTURIONS)
- SEMI ONE RESULTS
- SEMI TWO RESULTS
- GRAND FINAL RESULTS