Asian Age Group Swimming Championships | Srihari Nataraj, Sajan Prakash, Kushagra Rawat secure gold
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Srihari Nataraj, Sajan Prakash, and Kushagra Rawat have added more gold to India’s tally at the 10th Asian Age Grop Swimming Chamiopnship in Bengaluru on Thursday. India finished another lucrative day with four golds, four silvers, and four bronzes to take its overall tally to 40.
Srihari Nataraj, as promised, delivered the gold in the men’s 100m backstroke, but fell short of the A-mark Olympic Qualification Time on the third day of the 10th Asian Age Group Swimming Championship in Bengaluru on Thursday. Nataraj enthralled the home crowd with his remarkable sprint by creating a new meet record clocking 55.06 while Atayev Merdan (55.28) from Turkmenistan settled for silver and Lau Shiu Yue (57.56) of Hong Kong won the bronze. The 55.06 he swam was 0.83s faster than the previous meet record but was more than a second off the time required to secure an Olympic berth (53.85).
Later in the evening, the Indian duo of Virdhawal Khade and Natraj were edged out by Khurshidjon Tursunov of Uzbekistan who clocked 50.56 seconds to win the gold in the 100m freestyle. Khade was close behind with a time of 50.68 while Nataraj timed 50.91 seconds. Nataraj expected a faster time but was still content with his effort as he did not expect such fierce competition in the backstroke event.
 “I expected a faster time but there is nothing to be disappointed with. This is my third fastest time . I gave my 100 per cent and tried my best. The competition was a lot tougher than what I thought it would be. I didn’t expect a fellow 55s backstroker to be here. So it was exciting,” he said to Sportstar.
Another of the Olympics hopeful, 26-year-old Sajan Prakash, clinched the gold in the 200m butterfly but wouldn’t be very pleased with his timing. He clocked 2:00.38, followed by Wongcharoen Navaphat (2:01.16) of Thailand and Klzie Ayman (2:02.38) of Syria. Sajan’s timing was 0.25 seconds slower than his effort at the Senior Nationals earlier this month, a result he had termed “very disappointing.”
Kushagra Rawat, meanwhile, triumphed in 400m freestyle and continued his gold-winning spree. The teenager has now swept all four freestyle races at the championship. He clocked 3:55.81s to finish ahead of Taipei's Chang Cheng Li Wei (3:56.82) and Abbas Omar (4:01.52) of Syria. Kushagra now has an opportunity to add a relay gold to his list of medals on Friday. On the day, India won four golds, four silvers, and four bronzes to take its overall tally to 40 (12G, 16S, 12B).
