Video
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_tv6?id=34338169
Hooray! and Well done! Cousin Bovell
wins the bronze metal for Trinidad & Tobago in Men's
200m Individual Medley http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2004/medaltracker/32CountryByTotal.html
http://65.39.231.169/Olympics2004/Olympics_Athletes_Home.htm
George Bovell III
Born: July 18, 1983
Height: 196 cm (6’ 5”)
Weight: 86 kg (190 lbs)
Event: 100 m and 200 m swimming
Previous Olympic experience: None
Born
into a family of high-achieving athletes, the six-foot-five swimmer
was blessed with the right gene pool from which to splash to his
world-beating swimming exploits. His father, George II, was a top
regional and successful university level swimmer, his mother Barbara
swam in the 400 metres final for Barbados back in the 1972 Munich
Olympics and his younger brother Nicholas has been a Carifta and
regional standout in swimming.
Bovell's
career climaxed with his world-record swim at the National Collegiate
Athletics Association (NCAA) men’s swimming and diving championships
in Long Island in March 2004, when he smashed the 200-metre IM world
record by nearly a second, in a very fast 1:53.93. That performance
was a near-perfect exhibition of his superb, effortless, yet efficient
technique, as he glided over the water to victory, leaving his
competitors floundering helplessly in his slipstream.
Despite
the lofty pace of his accomplishments in the pool, having won four
medals at last year’s Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo and also
currently holding 46 Trinidad and Tobago record, Bovell is humble and
laid-back. This humility, a trait that dates back to his
pre-world-class swimming days, has endeared him to the T&T public
and to his competitors. It, however, has not prevented him from
maintaining his dogged focus and determination to swim in those
uncharted waters where no Trinidad and Tobago swimmer has swum before.
CAREER
HIGHLIGHTS:
2004: Gold medal and world, NCAA, and US open records, 200-metre IM,
NCAA Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championships, Long Island, New
York
2003: Gold medals, 200-metre freestyle and 200-metre IM; silver
medals, 100-metre freestyle and 100-metre back, Pan Am Games, Santo
Domingo
2003: Gold medal and NCAA and US open record, 200-yard IM, NCAA
Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championships, Texas.
