Bajan Ally glides into 200m medley semis

BEIJING, China (CMC):

BARBADIAN BRADLEY Ally swam superbly for third place in his heat and qualified for the men's 200-metre individual medley semi-finals at the Beijing Olympics yesterday. Ally, 23, clocked a personal best one minute, 58.57 seconds and is the fifth fastest entering today's semi-final of the event that Trinidad and Tobago's George Bovell won bronze in four years ago in Athens.

First from Caribbean

Ally is the first swimmer from the English-speaking Caribbean at these Beijing Olympics to get past the first round.

Contesting heat three, Ally was competitive as he chased Hungary's Laszlo Cseh (1:58.29) and Japan's Ken Takakuwa (1:58.51) and chopped a second and a half off his previous best 2:00.96. "I am pretty happy you know. I executed all the plans I wanted to going into this race, and I just want to see where it takes me," Ally told CMC Sport after the swim.

Quickest time

American Ryan Lochte, a silver medallist in the event in Athens, was the quickest at 1:58.15 and Brazil's Thiago Pereira (1:58.41), Cseh and Takakuwa were the only other swimmers faster than Ally.

Next fastest on the grid was the American super star Michael Phelps, who has already won five gold medals and cruised to victory in heat six in 1:58.65.

The other Caribbean entries in the 200IM missed out.

In heat two, Trinidad and Tobago's Nicholas Bovell placed fifth in 2:03.90 and the Bahamian Jeremy Knowles clocked 2:01.35 for fourth in heat three.

Knowles was 24th fastest of the round and Bovell was ranked 36th for his effort.

Bahamian Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace finished second in heat two of the women's 100m freestyle - behind Hong Kong's Jane Hannah - in 55.61 seconds for 28th place in the heats.

Brett Fraser, of the Cayman Islands, landed heat one of the men's 200m backstroke, clocking 2:01.17 but his effort was only 29th on the ranking list for the round.

Caribbean entries flopped again in the sailing.

In race three of the men's laser event, the US's Andrew Campbell won ahead of Austria's Andreas Geritzer. The US Virgin Islands' Thomas Barrows finished 20th and Barbadians Gregory Douglas 43rd, similar positions to what they achieved in the first two races on Tuesday.