Swimming World Championship | Indian swimmers break national records, fail to progress to next rounds
A file image of Srihari Nataraj.
|(Twitter)
Swimmers Kushagra Rawat, Sajan Prakash and Srihari Nataraj created new national records at Short Course World Championship in Abu Dhabi, on Thursday. All the three swimmers bettered their own national marks by cutting close to a second each in their respective categories at the championship.
With a timing of 3:49.04s, Kushagra bettered his previous national record in men's 400m. The previous record stood at 3:49.76s, which he had set in the 2019 South Asian Games.
Olympian Sajan broke his national record in the 200m butterfly category. He bettered his record of 1:53.20s to 1:52.10s. Nataraj, on the other hand, bettered his record in the 100m backstroke event with 52.81s, which earlier stood at 53.63s, set at the 2019 South Asian Games.
But unfortunately, this was not enough for them to move into the next rounds, in their respective event. Meanwhile, four Indian swimmers are taking part in the World Swimming Championship (25m). The last participant is Ridhima Veerender Kumar.
This happens to be the first international tournament for the Indian swimmers since the Tokyo Olympics. Nataraj and Prakash had qualified for the championship with an 'A' qualifying time, while Rawat made the cut with 'B' qualifying time. Ridhima though was selected as she had highest FINA points from her events at Senior National Aquatic Championship.
