Nigel Si­mon

At­lantis Aquat­ic swim­mer, Joshua Mc Leod will be the first T&T com­peti­tor to take to the wa­ter when he com­petes in the sev­enth heat in the men's 100m but­ter­fly event at 10 am (2 am T&T time) to­day, at the 10th FI­NA World Short Course Swim­ming in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. The com­pe­ti­tion splash­es off to­day un­til Sun­day and will be con­test­ed at the spank­ing new, state of the art fa­cil­i­ty, the Ham­dan bin Mo­hammed bin Rashid Sports Com­plex. For the 100m but­ter­fly Mc Leod is ranked 33rd out of the 94 ath­letes reg­is­tered for this event, but the Fyz­abad youth is in top form hav­ing com­pet­ed in the Cana­da Cup a lit­tle more than two weeks ago, where he won gold in a Na­tion­al Open Record time of 52.86 sec­onds and is hope­ful of a semi­fi­nal spot to be con­test­ed lat­er to­day. Mc Leod along with Athens Greece Olympic Games bronze medal swim­mer, George Bovell III and Cherelle Thomp­son ar­rived in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Sun­day morn­ing and are ready to face the fastest swim­mers on the globe.

Ac­cord­ing to the 27-year-old Bovell III who will com­pete in three events, the fa­cil­i­ty is fan­tas­tic. He said, "The pool is ab­solute­ly fan­tas­tic and on par with the Bei­jing Olympics Wa­ter Cube for the best venue that I have ever been in. There is some­thing spe­cial about walk­ing in­to such a place, a feel­ing that it de­serves and de­mands noth­ing less than your best. If swim­ming were a re­li­gion this would be St Pe­ters Basil­i­ca." Thomp­son will be next up to face starter's or­ders in the 100m freestyle on Day Two. She is ranked 56th out of the 93 ath­letes, with her en­try time be­ing one minute, 00.46. Three events lat­er, both Bovell III, com­pet­ing in his third Short Course Cham­pi­onship and Mc Leod would be in ac­tion in the 50m freestyle. Bovell and Mc Leod are ranked 20th and 33rd re­spec­tive­ly in the 133 man field. Mc Leod re­turns to ac­tion on Fri­day in the 50m but­ter­fly in which he at­tempt to bet­ter his Na­tion­al Open Record of 23.51 sec­onds which he set at the Na­tion­al Open Short Course Cham­pi­onships one month ago.

He is ranked 26th out of the 121 man field. The busiest day for lo­cal trio will be Sat­ur­day's penul­ti­mate day of com­pe­ti­tion. First up, Bovell III and Mc Leod who are ranked 29th and 39th re­spec­tive­ly in the 132 man field will com­pete in the 100 me­tres freestyle heats. Two events lat­er, Bovell III will be back in­to ac­tion, this time in the 100m In­di­vid­ual Med­ley. The Olympic medal­list is ranked 18th in the 87 man field. Thomp­son will com­pete in her pet event the 50m freestyle on Sat­ur­day. She erased the 15-17 record of Olympian Siob­han Crop­per at the Na­tion­al Open Short Course Cham­pi­onships last month and has a time of 25.61 which ranks 34th out of the field of 100. The team has been ac­com­pa­nied by coach­es Joseph Mc Leod and Shawn Pouchet, and sec­re­tary of the Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASATT), Gary Morales while Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Anil Roberts al­so jour­neyed to Dubai on Sun­day where he will meet with Fi­na of­fi­cials as well as as­sist Bovell, who he trains lo­cal­ly.