T&T's George Bovell III says he feels vindicated by his bronze-medal swim in the men's 100 metres individual medley on the fifth and final night of competition at the 11th FINA World Short Course Swimming Championship. This was at the Sinan Erdem Arena, Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday.
Swimming from lane three, the 29-year-old Bovell III, who had the slowest reaction time of all the swimmers to the starter of 0.74 seconds, got off to a slow start and found himself in fourth spot at the halfway stage with a split of 23.73 after the butterfly and backstroke swims to trail his Australian World Cup rival Kenneth To (22.90), Slovenian Peter Mankoc (23.46) and USA's Ryan Lochte (23.52), who set a new championship and world record in the semifinals.
However, in the second half of the race (breaststroke and freestyle), Bovell III, a four-time Olympian and bronze medal winner in 2004 in Athens, Greece, turned it up a notch and clocked 27.93 to touch the wall in 51.66 for bronze, this country's first ever medal at a FINA?Swimming World Championship.
"It was especially vindicating tonight (Sunday) for me, after this whole year with the London Olympics and World Cup, to come here and cap it off with a World Championship medal just like I said I wanted to."
He added, "Unfortunately I was not able to clinch one in the 50m freestyle, missing by .04, leaving me absolutely gutted, so there was extra pressure on me to get a medal on Sunday, and I am very proud of myself if I do say so for the way I kept fighting back."
Lochte, who became the first athlete to complete the men's 200m IM under 1:50 minutes, after establishing a new world record in the event on the third day in 1:49.63, setting the first world best mark of the championships completed the IM double when he raced home in 51.21 seconds while To was second in 51.38.
Mankoc was fourth in 52.51, followed by Sweden's Simon Sjodin (52.63), USA's Conor Dwyer (52.83) and Japanese duo of Takuro Fujii (53.11) and world 400m IM champion Daiya Seto (53.15).
With regards to his overall season, Bovell III, a former NCAA swim champion as a member of Auburn University, said, "It has been a long one, and the way it has taken its toll on me here was evident.
"I was not able to match my top form from the World Cups, the times which would have come second in the 50m freestyle (20.82 seconds) and first in the 100m IM with 51.20. "It's just that I think my season was too long and I was taking on too much. That's the way it goes sometimes, you need to accept early on that it won't come easy and steel yourself for the hard fight to come."
He also noted, "All in all, extremely satisfied and relieved. One more competition to go in Russia on the December 20-22 then home for a much needed rest."
Ironically, Bovell III also clocked 51.66 seconds for second in his semifinal heat on Saturday behind 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 Mankock in 2009.
The others in the heat who qualified for the gold medal splash were Sjodin (52.71), 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.
To was the top qualifier in the first semifinal in 51.47 seconds. The second fastest overall Seto (53.10) and Fujii (53.14) also booked places in the gold medal splash. Reflecting on his overall performances at the championship which also included fourth in the men's 50 metres freestyle to miss a medal by 0.04 seconds, Bovell III?said, "I had been fourth and fifth too many times in my career."
