Nigel Si­mon

T&T's Napoleon How­ell had an eight place fin­ish in the men's 50m breast­stroke A-Fi­nal on Fri­day's first night of fi­nals at Char­lotte Ul­tra Swim Meet at the Meck­len­burg Coun­ty Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na. How­ell, one of five T&T swim­mers who com­pet­ed at the meet clocked 29.49 sec­onds in the fi­nal which bet­tered the pre­vi­ous na­tion­al record of 28.99 held by George Bovell III. The race was won by Bar­ry Mur­phy in 27.81 while Mark Gan­gloff took sil­ver in 27.8, and John Criste, bronze in 28.09. In the morn­ing heats, Mur­phy was the top qual­i­fi­er in 28.77 sec­onds fol­lowed by Bren­dan Hansen (28.28), Criste (28.31), Gan­gloff (28.43), Kevin Sander (28.53), How­ell (28.73), Nel­son West­by (29.06) and El­liot Keefer in 29.11. In the 50m breast­stroke, an­oth­er lo­cal swim­mer Abra­ham Mc Leod had to set­tle for the bronze in 29.30 sec­onds to trail win­ner Mitch Scher­er (28.93) and Jorge Mario Muril­lo (29.29). Ear­li­er on the morn­ing pre­lim­i­nary heats, Mc Leod was the 12th fastest over­all in 29.40.

Chris­t­ian Homer had a fourth-place fin­ish in the men's 50m back­stroke 'B' fi­nal in 26.82, well be­hind win­ner Fre­ston Jenk­ins (26.64) and Aaron Gustafson and Kevin Doak, who both clocked, 26.73. In the morn­ing heats, Homer, who is at­tached to Bolles High School in Flori­da was the tenth fastest in 26.83 sec­onds just be­hind top Amer­i­can swim­mer, Ryan Lotche (26.70) while an­oth­er lo­cal com­peti­tor, Caryle Blondell was 33rd in 28.39. In oth­er events on Fri­day, How­ell (1:05.82 mins) and Abra­ham Mc Leod (1:05.96 mins) were 34th and 36th over­all in the men's 100m breast­stroke while Joshua Mc Leod (56.45 sec­onds) and Homer (58.31) end­ed 37th and 63rd re­spec­tive­ly in the 100m but­ter­fly.

On Sat­ur­day, Mc Leod (A) and his broth­er, Joshua Mc Leod both com­pet­ed in the 50m freestyle, fin­ish­ing 37th and 74th over­all with times of 23.99 and 24.85 sec­onds re­spec­tive­ly. In ad­di­tion, Homer was 31st in the 100m back­stroke in 59.02 sec­onds and Blondell, 39th in 59.65 while Homer al­so swam the 50m but­ter­fly plac­ing 33rd in 26.43 sec­onds. On Sun­day, the trio of Joshua Mc Leod (52.08), Blondell (52.33) and Abra­ham Mc Leod (54.11) failed to get to medal con­tention in the men's 100m freestyle af­ter they fin­ished 37th, 45th and 79th re­spec­tive­ly. Bovell III, who had planned to com­pete at the meet de­cid­ed against do­ing so along with his Slo­va­kian team-mate Milo­rad Cav­ic and will next be in ac­tion at the Austin Texas Grand Prix, June 1.