T&T’s Nikoli Black­man will make his de­but at the eighth FI­NA World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship with a show­down against the world record hold­er in the 100 me­tres freestyle, Ro­man­ian David Popovi­ci in the men's 200m freestyle at the Vi­de­na Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Li­ma, Pe­ru, on Wednes­day from 11.21 am.

Both Black­man and Popovi­ci were list­ed to com­pete in yes­ter­day's open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion in the men's 400m freestyle heat but in­stead opt­ed out with the Eu­ro­pean in­stead fo­cus­ing on the 4x100m re­lay with his coun­try.

To­day, how­ev­er, the 17-year-old Popovi­ci who broke Brazil­ian Ce­sar Cielo’s 13-year-old 100m free mark at 46.86 re­cent­ly, and al­so swam the fastest 200m free by any­one in 13 years at 1:42.97 will start as a firm favourite for the gold medal when they line up in the heats.

Both swims by Popovi­ci al­so stand as world ju­nior records and com­ing off of two gold medals at the Worlds in Bu­dapest, he will be the main at­trac­tion in the Pe­ru­vian cap­i­tal as all eyes will be on the clock when he swims his two main events—the 100m and 200m freestyle.

Popovi­ci will be in lane four of heat eight for the 200m freestyle while Black­man will com­pete from lane eight with Chi­nese Taipei’s Arthur Wil­son Yule, Poland’s Adam Zdy­bel, Turkeys Natuhan Fil­iz, Poland’s Jakub Wal­ter, Brazil­ian Joao Pierre Cam­pos, and Slo­va­kian Jakub Po­liacik the oth­er swim­mers in the heat.

The Joseph Mc Leod-coached Black­man, a Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent, will al­so fan­cy his chances of ad­vanc­ing from the heat to the semi­fi­nal as he has been in omi­nous form in re­cent months, in­clu­sive of stand­out swims at the Carif­ta Games Swim­ming Cham­pi­onship, Pan-Amer­i­can Age-Group Cham­pi­onships, and the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Am­a­teur Swim­ming Con­fed­er­a­tion Cham­pi­onship, cap­tur­ing the Age-Group High Point awards for the 15-17 boys each time.

A mem­ber of the Mar­lins Swim­ming Club, Black­man, who is al­so be­ing ac­com­pa­nied by his fa­ther Bertram Black­man, and com­pet­ed at the FI­NA World Short Course Cham­pi­onship last De­cem­ber in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates will al­so com­pete in the 12th and fi­nal men’s 50m freestyle to­mor­row morn­ing from 10.37 am heat from lane five along­side Spain's Guiller­mo Car­rey, Brazil­ian Vi­tor Sega, Poland's Szy­mon Misi­ak, Croa­t­ian Jere Hrib­ar, Hon­duran Gabriel Mar­tinez, Venezue­lan Emil Perez, and Ja­maican Nathaniel Thomas.

On Fri­day, Black­man will be back in the pool again for the men's 50m but­ter­fly heat ten of 11 and he will swim from lane sev­en against Ba­hami­an Nigel Forbes, Brazil's Pe­dro Souza, Colom­bian Si­mon Bermudez, Den­mark's Casper Pug­gard, Ital­ian Elia Co­dar­d­i­ni, France's Ben­jamin Chateign­er, and Lithua­nia's Dani­il Pancerevas.

In the 100m freestyle on Sat­ur­day (Sep­tem­ber 3), Black­man com­petes in heat 11 of 13 heats from lane two with Brazil's Matheus Pereira, South African Pieter Co­et­ze, France's Nans Mazel­li­er, Pancerevas, Ro­man­ian Patrick Se­bas­t­ian Dinu, Ar­genti­na's Ma­tias San­ti­so and Misi­ak.

The six days of com­pe­ti­tion will fea­ture six morn­ings of pre­lim­i­nary heats with the semi­fi­nals and fi­nals in the evening ses­sion.

All morn­ing ses­sions will start at 10.30 am, and evening ses­sions will start at 7 pm.

The venue is the same one used for the XVI­II Pan Amer­i­can and Para­pan Amer­i­can Games Li­ma 2019, the Li­ma 2021 South Amer­i­can Youth Aquat­ic Sports Cham­pi­onship, and the FI­NA Wa­ter Po­lo World League In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Cup 2022.