The name George Bovell III is one that is syn­ony­mous with ded­i­ca­tion, pa­tri­o­tism and suc­cess. He is by far one of the most re­spect­ed and ad­mired men in sport in this coun­try. Bovell put this very twin is­land state on the map when he be­came an Olympic medal­list. Hav­ing won a bronze medal for Trinidad and To­ba­go in Athens in 2004, Bovell has de­cid­ed to once again make his coun­try proud by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2012 Olympics. When asked about his ex­pec­ta­tions for the 2012 Olympic Games, the uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate dis­closed that he hopes to come out vic­to­ri­ous in the 50m freestyle event. He added, "Stand­ing on the podi­um is my ul­ti­mate goal."

Swim­ming is tru­ly Bovell's call­ing. He told gieMAGAZINE that he start­ed swim­ming in his grand­moth­er's pool be­fore he could even walk. As a young man he played foot­ball, crick­et and ten­nis and par­tic­i­pat­ed in sail­ing and gym­nas­tics, still his heart was with the wa­ter and as a re­sult he grav­i­tat­ed to­wards swim­ming. He stat­ed "Swim­ming chose me." Where does his in­spi­ra­tion come? Posed with this ques­tion the Olympic medal­list in­sist­ed "My in­spi­ra­tion comes from with­in. This is where I be­lieve it should come from. You have to be able to mo­ti­vate your­self. That's the dif­fer­ence be­tween in­spi­ra­tion which lasts a life­time and mo­ti­va­tion which is tem­po­rary. Deep down in­side I want to be the best that I can be, so that when I am on my deathbed I can look back with sat­is­fac­tion know­ing that I played the cards that I was dealt by the uni­verse bold­ly like a true cham­pi­on."

How­ev­er, Bovell has a favourite swim­mer. Er­ic Shanteau, Bovell in­di­cat­ed, is in­deed his favourite. Shanteau pos­sess­es one of the most in­spi­ra­tional sto­ries and Bovell stressed that he ad­mires Shanteau great­ly for this. A good friend, for­mer room­mate and team­mate of Bovell, Shanteau is a Unit­ed States Olympian who bat­tled with can­cer and swam Olympic tri­als. Bovell said that he "be­lieves that he (Shanteau) is one of the tough­est hu­man be­ings on the plan­et." In­deed this is an ad­mirable feat.

Now that Bovell is train­ing for the 2012 Olympics he has quite a hec­tic sched­ule. The de­ter­mined swim­mer swims twice on Mon­days, Wednes­days and Fri­days and lifts weights on those days. On Tues­days, Thurs­days and Sat­ur­days he swims once but ex­treme­ly hard.

In his lit­tle spare time, he reads, does free div­ing, hangs out with friends and just tries to break out of the rou­tine. His di­et in­cludes nat­ur­al whole foods that are un­processed and lots of fish; it is an over­all healthy di­et. But how does this Olympic 2012 par­tic­i­pant cope with such a hec­tic sched­ule and main­tain­ing prop­er re­la­tion­ships with fam­i­ly and friends? To this he stat­ed, "There is time for every­thing if you make time. This is one of the im­por­tant life skills along with dis­ci­pline and goal set­ting that sport teach­es you." Asked if there are any prob­lems he sees with swim­ming as a sport in this coun­try, Bovell in­sist­ed that train­ing fa­cil­i­ties need to be up­grad­ed. How­ev­er he ac­knowl­edged that things are chang­ing - "We have some lim­i­ta­tions but things are chang­ing for the bet­ter with the pro­grammes the new gov­ern­ment is putting in place and the fa­cil­i­ties they are con­struct­ing. Where there is a will there is way."

What ad­vice does he have to of­fer as­pir­ing sports­men? "Good is not great! Al­so you don't have to be great every­day just con­stant­ly good. Be grate­ful for what you have even when you think it isn't much. There are al­ways peo­ple who are much worse off and who are suf­fer­ing" he said. The ath­lete wished to thank God, his par­ents, his coach, Anil Roberts, his friend, Mike Bot­tom and his spon­sors Mal­abar Farms, First Cit­i­zens Bank and US­ANA Vi­t­a­mins. Where will Bovell be af­ter the 2012 Olympics? To this ques­tion he stat­ed "Af­ter the Olympics I will re­assess my po­si­tion and de­cide how long I hope to con­tin­ue in the sport." All the best to you Bovell! Make our coun­try proud.

Stephanie Seenath

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

Shi­va Boys' Hin­du Col­lege