Nigel Si­mon

Top lo­cal swim­mer, George Bovell had his FI­NA Short Course World Cup medal streak halt­ed at 19 medals from 19 fi­nals when he placed fourth in his pet event, the men's 50m freestyle fi­nal on the sec­ond and fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion at the Schwimm- und Sprung­halle im Eu­ropa-Sport­park (SSE) Pool, Berlin, Ger­many yes­ter­day.

A sil­ver medal win­ner in the same event at the same venue in 20.97 sec­onds last year, the 30-year-old Bovell was hop­ing to im­prove on Sat­ur­day's 100m in­di­vid­ual med­ley bronze fin­ish.

How­ev­er, swim­ming out of lane sev­en in the eight-man fi­nal, the Michi­gan-based T&T swim­mer could on­ly get to the wall in a time of 21.19 sec­onds to trail World and Cham­pi­onship record hold­er, South African, Roland Schoe­man (20.86), Russ­ian Vladimir Mo­ro­zov (21.00) and Ger­many's Stef­fen Deibler (21.04).

Oth­ers in the fi­nals were Aus­tralian Matthew Abood (21.22), Fin­land's Ari-Pekka Liukko­nen (21.23), Aussie James Mag­nussen (21.39) and Ukraine's An­drii Gov­orov (21.45).

In the morn­ing ses­sion Bovell, com­pet­ing in the fourth of fifth heats won in 21.55 ahead of Liukko­nen (21.61) and Hol­land's Jasper Van Mier­lo (22.01) to be the sixth fastest qual­i­fi­er over­all.

Al­so in the heat were Switzer­land's Erik Van Dooren (22.29), Cana­da's Joel Green­shields (22.78), Japan's Ko­suke Ki­ta­ji­ma (22.82), Colom­bian Tom Siara (22.86) and Slo­va­kian Ro­man Ku­cik (22.90).

On Sat­ur­day, Bovell took bronze in the 100m IM in 51.65 sec­onds be­hind Mo­ro­zov (51.13) and Aus­tralian Ken­neth To in 51.21.

In the heats, Bovell III who was seek­ing a sec­ond straight gold in the 100m IM won the third and fi­nal heat in 52.90 ahead of Ger­many Dim­itri Colu­paev (53.15) and Markus Deibler (53.24).

On Wednes­day, Bovell, a four-time Olympian be­gan the World Cup with gold in the 100m in­di­vid­ual med­ley in a new na­tion­al record mark at the Pieter van den Hoogen­band Swim­ming Sta­di­um Eind­hoven, Hol­land when he touched the wall in 51.15 sec­onds.

The time bet­tered his 51.20 clock­ing set in win­ning gold on Oc­to­ber 20 last year in Berlin, Ger­many, the fifth stop of the 2012 World Cup. Sec­ond home in the fi­nal was his World Cup ri­val To in 51.31 while Mo­ro­zov, got bronze in 51.50.

Bovell al­so com­pet­ed in the men's 50m breast­stroke but missed out on a spot in the gold medal splash by one spot af­ter he was fifth in the sec­ond and fi­nal heat in 27.23 to be the ninth fastest in the field.

A day lat­er he got bronze in the men's 50m freestyle fi­nal af­ter he clocked 21 sec­onds flat out of lane six, to trail Russ­ian World Long Course 50m freestyle sil­ver medal win­ner, Mo­ro­zov (20.66), and World Long Course 100m freestyle cham­pi­on, Mag­nussen (20.98), who al­so won the 100m freestyle (45.60) in Hol­land on Wednes­day.

Over the past ten days Bovell, an Athens Olympic 2004 bronze win­ner in the 200m IM has al­so cap­tured a bronze in a star-stud­ded men's 50m freestyle fi­nal in a na­tion­al record mark of 21.51 at the FI­NA Long Course World Cham­pi­onship at the Palau Sant Jor­di Swim­ming and Syn­chro­nized Are­na, Barcelona, Spain be­hind Brazil­ian Ce­sar Cielo (21.32) and Mo­ro­zov (21.47)

Last year, he re­bound­ed from a medal-less Lon­don 2012 Olympic Games–his fourth Olympics–where he was sev­enth in the men's 50m freestyle fi­nal with awe­some per­for­mances in the World Cup to claim 16 medals, sev­en gold and nine sil­ver for sec­ond over­all "Most Out­stand­ing Men's Swim­mer".

Bovell is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive home to­day for a well de­served rest be­fore re­sum­ing his train­ing for the six re­main­ing legs of the World in Moscow, Rus­sia (Oc­to­ber 12-13); Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (Oc­to­ber 17-18); Do­ha, Qatar (Oc­to­ber 20-21); Sin­ga­pore (No­vem­ber 5-6)' Tokyo, Japan (No­vem­ber 9-10) and Bei­jing, Chi­na, (No­vem­ber 13-14).