Bovell cops two firsts

On Monday George Bovell III, who last year became the first swimmer from Trinidad and Tobago and the English speaking Caribbean to win a medal at the Olympic Games, achieved another first becoming the first person to achieve the First Citizen’s Bank’s Male Sports Personality of the Year Award. His father, George Bovell II, received the award on his behalf from President George Maxwell Richards. The 20-year-old Bovell attends Auburn University in the United States.

The Sports Personality of the Year Award Ceremony had been sponsored by the West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO) for the past 40 years. The incongruity of a tobacco company continuing, however, to host the award ceremony for the country’s premier Male and Female Personality of the Year, both exemplars to young people saw a changeover to First Citizen’s Bank sponsorship. In securing the award Bovell eclipsed star West Indian batsman, Brian Lara, who had been one of the favourites for the honour, and who indeed won the title for the past five years. Candice Scott, the first Caribbean athlete to qualify in the finals of the hammer throw category at the Olympic Games won the Female Sports Personality of the Year. We congratulate both Bovell and Scott.

Bovell, who was little fancied internationally to be in medal row, displayed true grit and determination in gaining a bronze at the Athens-held Games. He placed third in the 200 metres Individual Medley, and in the process almost won silver. He comes from a family of accomplished swimmers, his mother represented Barbados at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and his father years ago won the Sportsman of the Year title. Bovell first came to world attention with victories last year in the World Cup series in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In March of last year he set a world short course record representing Auburn University at the NCAA Championship in New York. An exemplar to Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean youth, Bovell has demonstrated that with continued application and the resolve to do without many of the non essentials achievement can be within grasp. For years he committed himself to a carefully laid down regimen of exercise and diet, even as he pursued his studies and life after swimming. Candace Scott displayed the same application and determination which led to her achievement.

Bovell and other present day achievers on the Olympic scene, such as Scott, Daren Brown, have joined such Trinidad and Tobago Olympic greats as Hasely Crawford, Rodney Wilkes, Mannie Ramjohn, Wendell Mottley, Edwin Skinner, Gene Samuel and McDonald Bailey, among others. Bailey, however, though TT born ran for England in 1948, his place of domicile at the time. With severely limited facilities for training in Trinidad and Tobago Bovell was able to access these at Auburn. Nonetheless, facilities by themselves are not enough without the added ingredients of discipline, application and sacrifice, which young Bovell and Scott were able to demonstrate. So we congratulate both Bovell and Candace Scott on their achievement and proving themselves role models for our young people.