T&T's Olympic bronze medal swimmer had a rear failure in the men's 50m freestyle final at the FINA/Mastbank Swimming World Cup when he ended fourth at the fifth stop in Beijing, China yesterday.Entering the final as the fastest qualifier at the Ying Tung Swimming Pool, Olympic Sports Centre, the 31-year-old Bovell touched the wall in 21.40 seconds.However, his time was only good enough for fourth spot as the trio of South African Chad Le Clos (21.28), Germany's Steffen Deibler (21.34) and rising Chinese star, Zetao Ning (21.35) were all faster to take the gold, silver and bronze respectively.
The other finishers in the final were South African Roland Schoeman (21.92) followed by Kuo-Chi Chang (22.14), Huanan Ling (22.18) and Xianjian Zhao (22.38).In the fourth and final morning heat, Bovell won in 21.68 ahead of Ning (21.74) and Chang (22.33) while the others to finish in the heat were Serbian Ivan Lendjer (22.94), Weizhong Li (23.20), Raymond Mak Ho (23.23), Jiawei Tang (23.47), Jinjian Tang (23.58), Qatar's Omar Omar (25.03) and Lee Meyer Peter in 25.25.Le Clos was the second fastest qualifier from the heats after he won the second heat in 21.73 ahead of Ling (22.41) while Deibler topped heat three in 21.88 ahead of Schoeman (22.05) and Zhao (22.49).
On Friday, Bovell first created some personal history by claiming his first medal in the men's 50m breaststroke final in 26.91 seconds from lane seven.The winner was Olympic Champion Le Clos who stopped the clock in 26.87 seconds while Hungary's Daniel Gyurta took bronze in 26.93 in a very close finish.Others to finish in the final were Yukun Huang (27.43), Xiang Le (27.60), Jiajia Xue (27.67), Zibei Yan (27.71) and USA's Michael Andrew in 28.37.In the morning heats Schoeman was the top qualifier in 27.35 in heat three ahead of Xian Li (27.98) and Bovell (28.03), the fifth and sixth fastest qualifiers respectively followed by Singapore's Lionel Khoo (28.34), Yunsong Liu (28.83), Chinese Taipei's Suan-Yen Lee (29.30), Shaobin Fang (29.40) and Ziyi Chew (32.21).
Huang won heat one in 27.74 for the second fastest qualifying time and he was followed in his heat by Andrew (28.18) and Jiajia Xue (28.19) while Yan (27.76) and Gyurta (27.82) were one-five finishers in heat two.Bovell returned to the pool and won his second silver, this time in the men's 100m individual medley final in 52.43 seconds from lane three to trail Russian Sergei Fesikov (52.30) but ahead of China's 2012 Olympic champion Shun Wang (53.13).The silver medal in the 100m IM ended his run of gold medals in the event this season after he won both finals in Dubai and Doha to start the season before skipping both the third and fourth leg stops in Hong Kong (September 29-30) and Moscow, Russia (October 4-5).
The quintet of Tiansheng Jiang (55.07), Zhixian Yan (55.13), Huanan Ling (55.15), Andrew (55.59) and Raymond Mak Ho (55.84) were the others in the gold medal splash.Earlier in the 100m IM morning heats, Bovell won the second of three heats in 54.87 seconds from lane four ahead of Andrew (55.11) and China's Yang (55.18) the three qualifiers for the final to be the third, fourth and fifth fastest qualifiers respectively.However, the top swimmer from the heats was Fesikov who won heat three in 53.54 ahead of Wang (54.12) while Jiang (55.42), Ling (55.86) and Mak Ho (56.01) were the other qualifiers from heat one.Bovell, who has won six medals so far this season, two gold and four silver now heads to Tokyo, Japan (October 28-29) followed by Singapore (November 1-2) ahead of the 12th Fina World Swimming Championships (25m), in Doha from December 3-7.