At the last lap of the relay, Bello caught and passed Indiana swimmer and former Olympic champion Bob Windle.
[6] A versatile swimmer, on August 2, 1968, he came in third with a time of 1:57.7, in the Men's 200-meter freestyle at the AAU National Swimming Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska, qualifying him for the Olympic trials in the event.
His time was only .7 of a second behind the eighteen-year old first place finisher Mark Spitz, who would later set a world record in the event in 1972.
[10] At the 1968 Olympic preliminaries in Mexico City, Belo won the seventh heat in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 2:01.3, and qualified for the finals.
[12] He competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City in October, in the 200 meter freestyle and the 200-meter individual medley, though he did not medal in stiff international competition.
[1] In his closest swims for an Olympic medal, his 200-meter individual medley time in the finals was 2:13.7, placing him only .4 of a second behind American bronze medalist and Stanford swimmer John Ferris.