Srihari Nataraj completes Backstroke double, setting new National Record in 50m as well

Srihari Nataraj clocked a third National Record time inside two days, winning the men’s 50m Backstroke in 25.11 seconds at the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in Tashkent on Saturday. It sparked a five-gold haul by Indians on the concluding day of the event, a designated Olympic qualification meet. 

Sajan Prakash won the 100m Butterfly in 53.69 seconds (his second fastest time ever) to pick up his fourth gold in the competition while Maana Patel added the women’s 50m Backstroke crown in 30.02 seconds to her 100m Backstroke prize and Divya Satija did likewise by winning the women’s 100m Butterfly final in 1:04.48 to add to the gold won in the one-lap race. S Danush won the men’s 200m Breaststroke in 2:21.15 to strike his first gold in three events.

On a day when the touchpads did not work – quite surprising for an event that is an Olympic qualifier – Srihari Nataraj’s solid effort in the 50m Backstroke final set the ball rolling for the Indian team. He had eased through the heats in 26.56 seconds, conserving his explosive energy for the evening. The 20-year-old rewrote the 100m Backstroke National Record twice on Thursday.

While Maana Patel’s victory came against younger team-mate Suvana C Baskar, who clocked a personal best of 30.28 seconds, Danush would have been surprised that SP Likhit did not dive into the pool after coming under the starter’s orders. But after finishing with minor medals in the 50m and 100m Breaststroke events, he claimed gold in the 200m final, a race in which the Indian secured entry only the evening before.

One talking point at the end of the Uzbekistan Open Championships is the indication that the thinktank within the Swimming Federation of India did not get the women swimmers to try and forge freestyle and medley relay teams with an eye on the Asian Games. One way of ensuring that women swimmers would go to the Asian Games next year would be to field relay teams.

Based on times achieved in the recent weeks, a freestyle relay squad of Kenisha Gupta, Aditi Dhumatkar, Shivani Kataria and Suvana C Baskar would have placed eighth at the last Asian Games while the medley relay squad of Maana Patel, Chahat Arora, Divya Satija and Kenisha Gupta would have got sixth place in the 2018 Games.