Nigel Si­mon

T&T's George Bovell III missed out on a medal at the 14th FI­NA World Long Course Cham­pi­onships when fin­ished sev­enth in the men's 50m freestyle fi­nal at the In­door Sta­di­um, Ori­en­tal Sports Cen­tre, Shang­hai, Chi­na, yes­ter­day. The 27-year-old Bovell III, swim­ming out of lane one was slow to re­act to the starter and was sev­enth off the blocks, a posi­ti­tion he main­tained un­til the end of the race in 22.04 sec­onds, ahead of South Africa's Gideon Louw (22.11). The win­ner was Brazil­ian, Ce­sar Fil­ho Cielo, the world and Olympic cham­pi­on who re­tained his ti­tle with a 21.52 clock­ing while Italy's Lu­ca Dot­to got sil­ver in 21.90, and French­man, Alain Bernard, bronze in 21.92. The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Amer­i­can cham­pi­on, Nathan Adri­an (21.93), Brazil's Bruna Fratus (21.96) and Hun­gar­i­an, Kriszt­ian Takacs (21.99).

Two years ago in Rome, Italy, Bovell III broke the 50m freestyle world record of 21.69 with a siz­zling 21.64 clock­ing in the heats which was then bet­tered by Cielo in the fi­nal with a 21.08 clock­ing, but he failed to re­pro­duce that form this time around. In Fri­day's semi­fi­nal, Bovell III who was com­pet­ing in his sev­enth World Cham­pi­onship fi­nal, was joint fourth in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal in a sea­son best 22.02 sec­onds, the same time as Low to qual­i­fy for the gold medal splash as the joint sixth fastest swim­mer. The time by the 2004 Olympic bronze medal win­ner Bovell III bet­tered his pre­vi­ous best for the year of 22.31 set at the Paris Open last month. First home in Bovell III's semi­fi­nal was Fratus (21.76) fol­lowed by Cielo (21.79), Takacs (21.97), Low and Bovell III, Rus­sia's Sergey Fe­sikov (22.09), Aus­tralian Matthew Abood (22.16) and South African, Roland Schoe­man (22.42).

In the first semi­fi­nal Adri­an won in 21.94 fol­lowed by Dot­to (21.97), Olympic medal­list Alain Bernard (22.07), Aus­tralian Matthew Tar­gett (22.09), Italy's Mar­co Or­si (22.13), Great Britain's Adam Brown (22.21), Swe­den's Ste­fan Nys­trand (22.23) and Russ­ian, An­drey Grechin (22.36). Ear­li­er in the morn­ing heats, Bovell III, com­pet­ing in the 15th of 16 events and from a dif­fi­cult lane eight, was joint win­ner in 22.03 sec­onds with USA's Adri­an, who raced from lane four. Their time was equalled by Cielo, when he won heat 14. Bovell III and Adri­an were fol­lowed home in their heat by Takacs (22.15), Fe­sikov (22.16), Bernard (22.19), Dot­ta (22.25), Tar­gett (22.31) and Cana­di­an cham­pi­on Brent Hay­den, 22.34. Al­so in ac­tion, yes­ter­day was Cherelle Thomp­son who was fifth in heat eight of the women's 50m freestyle in 27.21 sec­onds for 42nd spot over­all. The oth­er team mem­ber Joshua Mc Leod com­pet­ed in the 50m and 100m but­ter­fly, and placed 29th and 45th re­spec­tive­ly. Bovell and his coach, Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts re­turn home at 4:56am on a Con­ti­nen­tal flight on Wednes­day while Thomp­son, Mc Leod and head coach Joseph Mc Leod ar­rive on Tues­day. Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T pres­i­dent, Lind­say Gillette ar­rived yes­ter­day.