T&T's George Bovell III will be hoping to end the 11th FINA World Short Course Swimming Championship with a medal when he lines up in his second final in three days, the men's 100 metres individual medley. This will be at the Sinan Erdem Arena, Istanbul, Turkey, from 1.30 pm today.
Bovell III, a four-time Olympian and bronze medal winner, sped home in 51.66 seconds for second in his semifinal heat behind USA's Ryan Lochte, who touched in a new World and
Championship record of 50.71 seconds, bettering his old meet record of 50.81 set two years ago in Dubai, and the world mark of 50.76 which was set by Slovenian, Peter Mankock in 2009.
The others in the heat, who qualified for today's gold medal splash were Sweden's Simon Sjodin (52.71), USA's Conno Dwyer (52.74) and Mankoc (52.80) while Israel's Gal Nevo (53.25), Denmark's Daniel Skaaning (54.05) and Poland's Jan Switkowski (54.21) were the other finishers.
Australian Kenneth To, who was Bovell's main rival in the event during the eight-legs of the FINA/ARENA Swimming Short Course World Cup season, which ended in Singapore on November 11, was the top qualifier in the first semifinal in 51.47 seconds to be the second fastest overall while 400m IM winner, Japan's Daiya Seto (53.10) and his countryman Takuro Fujii (53.14) also booked places in the gold medal splash.
For today's final, Lochte will be the man to beat after he set the first world record of the Championships in winning the men's 200m individual medley on Friday in 1:49.63, becoming the first to complete the distance in less than 1:50 minutes.
In the morning heats, Bovell III, who came within 0.04 seconds of a bronze medal in the men's 50m freestyle final on Friday and sat a new national record of 51.20 in Germany in October for the 100m IM was also second in the ninth and final heat from lane four in 53.51 second to trail Seto (53.4) and qualify as the fifth fastest from the heats.
Mankoc was third in the heat in 53.92 followed by Russian Dmitry Zhilin (54.44), Uzbekistan's Aleksey Derlyugov (54.50), Denmark's Chris Christensen (54.55), Croatian Dominik Straga (54.92) and Turkey's Orel Oral (55.93) while Brazil's Thiago Simon and Uruguay's Gabriel Melconian did not start.
Friday, lining up in lane three of the eight-man final, the 29-year-old Bovell III who was tenth in the same event two years ago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, raced home in 21.03 seconds, well short of his 20.82 record sat during the Short Course World Cup in Sweden on October 14.
Russian Vladimir Morozov won in 20.55 seconds to beat Olympic champion, France's Florent Manaudou (20.88) and USA's Anthony Ervin (20.99), Bovell's main rival in the event on the World Cup circuit into silver and bronze medal finishers.
The others in the gold medal splash were Italy's Marco Orsi (21.23), USA's Josh Schneider (21.38), Ukraine's Andrii Govorov (21.44) and Italian Federico Bocchia (21.58).
Bovell III was the second-fastest in the first of two semifinal heats, swimming from lane five, in 21.09 to trail Manaudou (20.92) for the third fastest overall in the 16-man semifinal heats.
Ervin was third in the heat in 21.17 and Schneider, (21.28) while the four qualifiers from semifinal two were Morozov with the second fastest time overall of 20.95 followed by Govorov (21.27), Orsi (21.37) and Bocchia (21.41).
In the morning heats, Bovell III touched the wall in 21.39 seconds for second spot behind Orsi (21.36) in heat 15 of 17 to be the fourth fastest qualifier overall while T&T's Joshua Mc Leod was eight in 22.12 for 27th spot.
The Mc Leod brothers, Joshua and Abraham failed to get past the preliminary heats of their respective events yesterday.
Joshua was sixth in the 13th of 16 men's 100m freestyle heats in 49.22 seconds fort 42nd spot overall well behind heat winner Benjamin Brusquetti of Paraguay who won in 48.08 to reach the semis as the 15th qualifiers while Abraham was ninth in the 12th and final men's 50m breaststroke heat from lane one in 27.58 for 29th spot overall.
Friday, Joshua Mc Leod just missed out on qualifying for the men's 50m butterfly semifinals by .06 hundredths of a second despite ending the 14th and final heat from lane seven in the ten-man field in ninth position.
The 22-year-old Joshua touched the wall in 23.63 seconds to trail Brazil's Nicholas Santos who won in a Championship Record equalling 22.40, the same mark achieved by Venezuelan Albert Subirats, two years ago in Dubai.