Top T&T swim­mer George Bovell earned two sil­ver medals when he com­pet­ed on the open­ing day of the fifth leg of the Fi­na/Mast­bank Swim­ming World Cup in Bei­jing, Chi­na yes­ter­day.

Bovell, who last com­pet­ed at the sec­ond-leg in Dubai on Sep­tem­ber 1, first cre­at­ed some per­son­al his­to­ry by claim­ing his first medal in the men's 50 me­tre breast­stroke fi­nal in 26.91 sec­onds from lane sev­en.

The win­ner was Olympic cham­pi­on, South Africa's Chad 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 by the top three fin­ish­ers at the Ying Tung Swim­ming Pool, Olympic Sports Cen­tre.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 five-time Olympian and 2000 bronze medal win­ner 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-two fin­ish­ers in heat two.

Ten events lat­er, the 31-year-old Bovell re­turn 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.With the two sil­ver medals, Bovell who com­petes in his pet event the 50m freestyle to­day im­proved his tal­ly for the sea­son to six medals, two gold and four sil­ver.

He will go in the fourth and fi­nal heat from lane six against Omar Omar (Qatar), Weizhong Li, Mak Ho, Ivan Lend­jer (Ser­bia), ris­ing Chi­nese star Ze­tao Ming, Kuo-Chi Chang of Chi­nese Taipei, Jin­jian Tang, Ji­awei Tang and Lee Mey­er Pe­ter.Le Clos and An­drew are in heat two of four while Schoe­man and Ger­many's Stef­fen Deibler are in heat three.Af­ter to­day, Bovell will jour­ney to Tokyo, Japan (Oc­to­ber 28-29) and Sin­ga­pore (No­vem­ber 1-2) ahead of the 12th Fi­na World Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships (25m), in Do­ha from De­cem­ber 3-7.