On Saturday, Sajan Prakash broke the automatic qualifying mark for the Tokyo Olympics at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome, becoming the first Indian swimmer to do so. In the 200m butterfly, he set a new national record of 1:56:38 seconds and made ‘A’ standard to qualify for the Olympics. The Tokyo Games ‘A’ standard is set at 1:56:48 seconds.
Srihari Nataraj came agonizingly close to becoming the first Indian swimmer to make the ‘A’ cut at the same tournament on Friday. He won the 100m backstroke event in 53.90 seconds, 0.05 seconds slower than the qualifying time of 53.85 seconds for the Tokyo Games. Sajan Patel’s ‘A’ time qualification also means that Nataraj, 20, will miss the Tokyo Olympics. This will be Sajan Prakash’s second Olympic Games. He was India’s male swimmer nominee for the Rio Olympics.
The swimming Federation of India (SFI) on Tuesday announced Srihari Nataraj and Maana Patel as their nominations for the Universality Places for the Tokyo Olympics. Swimming’s world body FINA offers qualification pathway in two ways — Olympic qualification time (A time) and Olympic Selection time (B time).
The Universality quota allows a country to send one male and one female competitor to the Olympics, provided no other swimmer of the same gender qualifies for the Games or receives a FINA invitation based on his or her Olympic Selection time (B time).
The Kerala swimmer had always been optimistic about breaching the elusive ‘A’ mark. ‘This is not my peak yet, when I peak after some skill sharpening, after that, I think it (A mark) will happen. I have to be patient for that,’ he had told media in April after he clocked 1:57:85 seconds in the Uzbekistan Open Championship
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