CHEATING GOING ON

Speaking to journalist Andy Bull of the London Guardian, Bovell - a five time Olympian - said that after 16 years he is done with swimming and the people who run it. “I came into the Olympics, my first Olympics, believing in the ancient legacy of heroic sporting glory,” Bovell said shortly after his final race in the 50m freestyle.

“And now I am leaving after my fifth Olympics seeing it for what it is, sadly a media franchise.” He said FINA’s approach to anti- doping, “has made it very, very obvious that this is really a glorified reality TV show”, adding, “they have shown the world that the Olympics is now a spectacle, not a competition. And I think it cheapens everything.” The most successful swimmer ever to come out of the Caribbean, he finished third behind Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in the 200m medley at Athens in 2004.

He then parlayed his success into charity, running free swimming clinics for kids in Trinidad and raising money for a malaria charity in Uganda.

Bovell told the London Guardian that swimmers are being “let down by the people at the top of the sport”. He knows he is competing against dopers. “I see the cheating going on. I see the people with terrible technique swimming incredible times and the people dropping lots of time late in their careers.” He says that the swimmers are being exploited by FINA.

“The people at the bottom, like us, we just feel like gladiators. Ancient Roman slave gladiators.” He is not the only one who feels this way – far from it. Bovell says there are a lot of conversations just like this going on away from the press.

“There is a general consensus that we have been let down and we are fed up.” It’s just that he, like Lilly King, is one of the few willing to speak out about it.

Speaking later to Caribbean journalists after he finished third in Heat 8 in a time of 22.30 at the Estadio Aquatico Olympico in Barra, Rio de Janeiro, Bovell confirmed that his career is now in its closing stages. Bovell finished the heats in 27th position overall, missing a top 16 spot which would have ensured him a spot in the semifinals.

He finished third behind Yu Hexin of China (22.30) and Filip Wypych of Poland (22.23). Heat nine, ten and 11 included many quality swimmers and they lived up to expectation as all 16 qualifiers came from those heats eliminating Bovell from the competition.

Less than a second separated Bovell and top qualifier Andriy Hovorov, who won heat 11 in 21.49. It was Bovell’s fifth Olympic Games, the most appearances at the Games by a TT athlete.

Clearly disappointed at not qualifying, Bovell said, “It is about the journey not the destination.

Some point in time you’ve got to recognize that the law of diminishing returns does kick in.

Coming into this (Olympics) whatever the outcome was going to be I was going to be okay with it, I just wanted to commit fully to the process.” Bovell, who earned a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Games, said he was disappointed following the heats.

“To be honest I think it was disappointing, I think everybody aspires to be in the finals and be on the podium. But it is what it is, I did not advance to the semi-finals, I am out in the heats life goes on.” The veteran swimmer said competing in the Olympics is always a satisfying experience. “It’s as intense every time, very few things give you as great a thrill as the Olympics. For a few days in the build up you really feel alive and that is a beautiful thing.” Bovell is hoping the sport in TT can grow. “I would encourage everybody to get involved. We have a new Aquatic Centre in TT that I believe is going to do wonders for growing the sport there. We are a very talented group of people in TT, a combination of many races and that blend of genetics is always expressed well in track and field, we see that coming through with a lot of medals and I will like to see that expressed in my lifetime in the sport of swimming.” And while Bovell was upset about the mess FINA has made of its anti-doping policies, another freestyler, Sidni Hoxha from Albania, was angry about the many mistakes it had made in processing the Olympic entry times. This is an issue affecting the other end of the sport, away from the semis and finals. Hoxha’s personal best in the 50m free is 22.93sec, which he set at the world championships in Kazan last year.

But when he arrived in Rio he found that his time had been registered as 29.93sec, a full seven seconds slower.

“I was looking for my name on the lists,” he said. “I saw the guys I knew I was going to race and then I kept on looking, in the previous heat and the one before that, and I went all the way to the end. I was scared I wasn’t even there.” BOVELL FACT FILE Bovell represented TT at the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics - the most ever appearances by a TT athlete at the Games. At the 2004 Olympics, he won a bronze medal in the men’s 200 IM in what is the first and so far, only Olympic swimming medal for this country. It was also TT’s only medal from the 2004 Olympics.

Bovell also made it to the Finals of the 50m Freestyle in London where he placed 7th in the fastest field ever assembled after returning from a forced hiatus due to a brain injury earlier in the season.

Bovell carried the TT flag at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the 20th Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena, Colombia and in the closing ceremonies of the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Olympic Games.

In 2013 Bovell won the Bronze Medal in the 50m freestyle at the FINA World Long Course Championships in Barcelona against the fastest field ever assembled in the sport, one in which every competitor in the final was an Olympic Medalist. His Bronze Medal time of 21.51 seconds would have won the silver in the London Olympic Final a year earlier.

In 2012 Bovell won the Bronze Medal in the 100m Individual Medley at the Fina World Short Course Championships in Istanbul.

Bovell has been in ten World Championship finals since his first in 2001.

(Additional reporting by Jelani Beckles)