Indian swimmer creates record by winning second gold in Uzbekistan

Indian swimmer, named Srihari Nataraj, had won his second gold in 50 m backstroke swimming created a national record in Uzbekistan Open Championship.

Srihari, who is 20 years old took 25 seconds to get the top prize in the Olympic qualifying event last night.

Indian swimmers got a total of 29 medals, which comprise of 18 gold, 7 silver and 2 bronze in the event.

This was Srihari’s third national record in the last two days as he had done it twice in 100 m backstroke, during this week.

Srihari had achieved the ‘B’ standard time for Tokyo Olympics in the 100 m backstroke. His personal best score 54.10 seconds but he later improved it to 54.07 seconds in the final match to win gold. He missed the Olympic ‘A’ mark by just 0.22 seconds.

There was another Olympic aspirant named, Sajan Prakash, who also impressed us in the event, by winning gold medal in all the four categories he participated in.

On the final day, Sajan, who is recovering from shoulder injury, finished in 53.69 in the 100 m butterfly to top the table.

Maana Patel and Suvana Bhasker, the women swimmers, had won gold and silver medals respectively in the 50 m backstroke event with the best score of 30.28 seconds.

Apart from and Srihari and Sajan, the only male swimmer from the country to participate at the 2016 Rio Olympics, fell short of the Olympic ‘A’ mark for the Tokyo games.

Sajan, who took part in the 200m butterfly on Tuesday, completed his lap in 1m57s, and missed the Olympic ‘A’ cut, which was set at 1m56s.

A ‘B’ mark Olympic means that the swimmer might get an invitation for the event, if the places are not filled up, on the other hand, a ‘A’ mark means an automatic position for the Tokyo Olympics.

Other than, Sajan and Srihari, there are other Indian swimmers who had got the Olympic ‘B’ mark for Tokyo Olympics. They are- Virdhawal Khade, Kushagra Rawat, Aryan Makhija and Advait Page.

None of the Indian swimmers had received the Olympic ‘A’ mark for the Tokyo Olympics.