..sets national record 100m IM at Short Course World Cup
Four days after capturing a second bronze medal at a FINA World Championship in the men’s 50m freestyle Long Course final, T&T’s George Bovell III began his Short Course World Cup with gold medal in the 100m individual medley in a new national record yesterday.
This was on the first day of the two-day meet at the Pieter van den Hoogenband Swimming Stadium in Eindhoven, Holland.
The 30-year-old Bovell, swimming out of lane seven, was third at the half-way mark of the race with a split of 23.62 seconds after a slow reaction time of .69 seconds, but improved drastically over the final 50m to take gold in 51.15 seconds for 974 FINA points, the third best on the day, which better his 51.20 clocking set in winning gold on October 20 last year in Berlin, Germany.
Second was his World Cup rival, Australian Kenneth To in 51.31 who had led at the half. Russian Vladimir Morozov, who had the fastest reaction time, got bronze in 51.50.
The other finishers were Australian Daniel Tranter (52.09), Germany’s Markus Deibler (52.56), Holland’s Mike Marissen (52.97), South African Darian Townsend (53.17) and Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima in 53.20.
In the morning session, the Michigan-based Bovell, swimming out of lane four in the third and final heat was joint-second with Townsend in 53.29.
Yet again, the T&T swimmer had a split of 24.62 and another slow reaction time of 0.72 for the sixth fastest qualifying time overall to Townsend’s 24.11 split.
The winner of the heat was Tranter (52.93), who was just 0.01 hundredths of a second faster off the starters’ block while Townsend was third in 5.
Finland’s Ari-Pekka Liukkonen was fourth in the heat in 56.31 followed Switzerland’s Donald Cameron (56.87), Spanish duo, Sergio Caballero (1:20.91 mins) and Aitor Grande (1:29.09 mins) while Italian, Fabio Scozzoli did not start the event.
Last year Bovell rebounded from a medal-less London 2012 Olympic Games – his fourth Olympics – with awesome performances in the World Cup to claim 16 medals, seven gold and nine silver for second overall “Most Outstanding Men’s Swimmer” behind USA’s Anthony Ervin.
Today, Bovell who also has an Olympic bronze (Athens 2004) in the 200m IM behind Americans Michael Phelps and Lochte will go after another gold when he lines up in the fourth of five men’s 50m freestyle heats from lane four again.
Others in the heat are Holland quartet, Coen De Bruijn, Jasper Van Mierlo, Tom Lommers and Ruud Van Bommel as well as France’s Yannick Agnel, Canadians, Tommy Gossland and Chris Manning and Liukkonen.
On Saturday, Bovell, swimming out of lane eight had the slowest reaction time to the starter’s pistol of .71 seconds, but recovered well enough to touched the wall in a new national Long Course record of 21.51 seconds for third behind Brazilian Cesar Cielo and Morozov (21.47).
At the completion of today’s event, he will travel to Berlin, Germany for the second World Cup leg on Saturday and Sunday before returning home for a short stay.