Nigel Si­mon

T&T's George Bovell III made it four sil­ver medals in a row when he fin­ished be­hind USA's An­tho­ny Ervin for the sec­ond straight week in the men's 50 me­tres fi­nal at the Do­ha, Qatar-Leg of the FI­NA/Are­na Swim­ming Short Course World Cup at the Hamad Aquat­ic Cen­tre, yes­ter­day.

Bovell, who was sev­enth in the same event at the Lon­don Olympic Games sped home in 21.06 sec­onds, just be­hind Ervin who splashed to gold in 21.02 sec­ond while Aus­tralians Kyle Richard­son got bronze in 21.54 sec­onds.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the trio al­so fin­ished 1-2-3 at the Du­bia, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates leg of the World Cup on Wednes­day, with Ervin win­ning in 21.18 sec­onds, fol­lowed by Bovell (21.23) and Richard­son (21.58).

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in yes­ter­day's 50m freestyle fi­nal were South African Roland Schoe­man (21.55), Fin­land's Ari-Pekka Liukko­nen (21.61), Aus­tralian Ken­neth To (21.66), New Zealand's Cameron Simp­son (21.83) and Ukraine's An­drii Gov­orov (21.87).

In the morn­ing ses­sion, Ervin (21.36) al­so got the bet­ter of the 29-year-old Bovell (21.62) in the third of four heats for the top two times in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies while Richard­son was third in the heat in 21.85 fol­lowed by Chi­na's Wen­jie Pu (22.89), Kuwait's Mo­hammed Madouh (23.56), Bahrain's Omar Al-Ma­li­ki (23.97), Oman's Nawaf Al-Qas­mi (25.12) and Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates' Ab­dul­la Na­seib (25.66).

In ad­di­tion to Ervin and Bovell, Schoe­man (21.70) and To (21.70) were the top qual­i­fiers from heat two while Gov­orov (22.03) and Liukko­nen (22.10) qual­i­fied from heat four, and Simp­son (22.08), the lone swim­mer from heat two.

On Sat­ur­day, Bovell al­so earned a sec­ond straight sil­ver medal in the men's 100 me­tres in­di­vid­ual in a new na­tion­al record and life­time best of 51.87 sec­onds.

To (51.58), took gold while Dar­i­an Townsend got bronze in 52.76 sec­onds, as the trio fin­ished in the same po­si­tions as they did in Dubai as well.

Fourth was Japan's Ko­suke Hagi­no (52.86), fol­lowed by Aus­tralian Tom­ma­so D'Or­sogna (53.13), Hun­gary's Las­z­lo Czech (53.23), Swe­den's Si­mon Sjoedin (53.87) and Chi­na's Yu Zhang (55.30).

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing, Bovell III was the top qual­i­fi­er in the sec­ond of three heats in 52.97 sec­onds fol­lowed by Hagi­no 53.88, Omar Pin­zon (56.07), Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates' Obaid Al Jas­mi (58.94), Oman's Aiman Al Ku­laibi (1:01.53) and Bahrain's Khaled Is­mael (1:07.30) while the duo of Geor­gios Syr­i­anos of Greece and In­dia's Ag­nish­war Jayaprakash did not start.

The time swam by Bovell was al­so the fastest qual­i­fy­ing time over­all fol­lowed by Hagi­no, To (54.10), Sjoedin (54.17), D'Or­sogna (54.26), Czech (54.29), Townsend (54.48) and Zhang (55.28)

Last week at the Ham­dan bin Mo­hammed bin Rashid Sports Com­plex, Swim­ming Pool, in Dubai, UAE, Bovell got sil­ver in the 100m IM in 52.19 sec­onds be­hind To (51.43) while Townsend took bronze in 52.60.

Next up for the 2004 Olympic bronze medal win­ner is the Stock­holm, Swe­den leg of the World Cup (Oc­to­ber 13-14) fol­lowed by stops in Moscow, Rus­sia Oc­to­ber 17-18; Berlin, Ger­many, Oc­to­ber 20-21; Bei­jing, Chi­na (No­vem­ber 2-3); Tokyo, Japan (No­vem­ber 6-7) and Sin­ga­pore, No­vem­ber 10-11.