Sajan Prakash completed a hat-trick with the men’s 400m Freestyle gold but it was Srihari Nataraj’s gallant effort to improve the National Record in the men’s 100m Backstroke twice in a day that held centrestage for India on the third day of the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in Tashkent on Thursday.
Chasing an Olympic Qualifying Time (A standard) of 53.85 seconds that would give him an automatic berth in the Tokyo Games later this year, Srihari Nataraj clocked 54.07 seconds in the 100m Backstroke final where Turkmenistan’s Merdan Atayev offered him some competition in his own quest for the Olympic qualification.
Earlier in the day, Srihari Nataraj clocked 54.10 seconds in the heats to improve his own National Record of 54.69 set in the FINA World Junior Championships in Budapest on August 20, 2019. It raised hope that he would shave off a further quarter of a seconds in the final and achieved his dream of ensuring a ticket to the Olympic Games.
Sajan Prakash added the 400m Freestyle crown to the 200m Butterfly and 200m Freestyle titles he won the first two days. His time of 3:56.03 was his second best behind his National Record of 3:54.93 set in the 2018 National Swimming Championships in Thiruvananthapuram. But it was off the Olympic Selection Time (B Standard) of 3:53.58.
There was a second gold medal for Chahat Arora who added the 100m Breaststroke title in 1:16.15 to the 50m crown won on Wednesday. Maana Patel marked a comeback with a win in the 100m Backstroke in 1:04.47, her third best time behind the National Record of 1:04.21 clocked as a 15-year-old in Thailand back on October 4, 2015 and the 1:04.33 she clocked in the 2018 National Championships in Thiruvananthapuram.
For someone who clocked a sluggish 1:07.17 in the Karnataka State Championships, Thursday’s time would have lifted her morale. She admitted that he start and turn could have been better but a victory over younger compatriot Suvana C Baskar, who also clocked a personal best time of 1:06.17 by 1.70 seconds showed that she was possibly injury free and in good competitive trim.
Shivani Kataria joined the gold diggers by winning the women’s 400m Freestyle in dramatic fashion. After taking the early lead over Anastasiya Zelinskya, she trailed the home swimmer over the next five turns. She then stepped up the pace to regain the lead and secure a victory in 4:38.05, considerably slow for someone whose personal best of 4:27.16 came in September 2019.
SP Likhit won the men’s 100m Breaststroke silver in 1:02.05, his second best time behind the 1:02.02 that he clocked in Malaysia in April 2019. His team-mate S Danush claimed the bronze in 1:03.50, a personal best time. Vladislav Mustafin was the winner over Likhit by a wafer-thin margin of two-hundredths of a second.
