Swimming has never been India’s forte at the Olympics, with them not only failing to bag a medal so far but also unable to make a serious claim for a podium finish. Even at the 2016 Rio Olympics, only two swimmers qualified for the mega event - Sajan Prakash (Men’s 200m Butterfly) and Shivani Kataria (Women’s 200m Freestyle), as they finished at the 28th and 41st spot respectively in the heats.

Let us have a closer look at the Indian swimming contingent -

Sajan Prakash’s first dive inside a pool was when he was just five years old. Massively backed up by her mother – V Shantymol, who herself was a track-and-field athlete, Prakash soon made up his mind to push his level further. Initially, he was enrolled at the Neyveli City Swimming Club, Tamil Nadu, but moved to Bengaluru to train under famed coach Pradeep Kumar. Even though he started off with short-distance events, Prakash shifted to the longer ones like 200m butterfly and the medley on Pradeep’s recommendation.

It was in the same year that he earned a FINA scholarship from the official governing body to train in Thailand, Bangkok. The following year, at the South Asian Games, in Guwahati, he claimed three gold medals – in the men’s 200m butterfly, 1500m freestyle, and 4x200m relay.

Sajan Prakash made his Olympics debut at the 2016 Rio Games, where he featured in the men's 200m butterfly event, qualifying by virtue of the university quota. He finished 28th overall in the heats, failing to make it to the finals.

Srihari Nataraj (Men’s 100 Backstroke)

However, Srihari’s records still looked bleak in front of the lofty Olympic standards. Meanwhile, he was inducted into the TOPS Target Olympic Podium Scheme – a flagship programme of the Indian Sports Ministry. The development boosted Srihari’s Olympic quest astronomically. A year or two later, in the build-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the swimmer from Bengaluru breached the B-Qualification mark. However, that was not enough to earn him a ticket to Tokyo and had to still rely on the university quota for entry.

With the pandemic situation looming over, preparations had taken a huge beating, but a three-member camp including himself, Virdhawal Khade, and Kushagra Rawat in Dubai, UAE, earlier this year, helped him get his footing back. Eventually, at the 2021 Sette Colli Trophy in Rome, barely a day after Sajan created history, Srihari also breached the Olympic A-qualification time in the 100m backstroke category, by clocking 53:77 seconds. Srihari is now gearing up to make his Olympics debut in Tokyo.

When Maana Patel scripted a new national record at the 40th Junior National Aquatics Championship in Hyderabad in the women’s 200m backstroke event, she was 13. She had taken up the sport only six years back, at the age of seven. Following this, the Ahmedabad-born stroker soon transformed into a seasoned campaigner, claiming regular medals at the domestic level, including three top-podium finishes at the 72nd  Senior National Aquatic Championships in 2018. At the international level, Maana rose to prominence at the 12th South Asian Games, where she claimed six medals, including two golds, three silvers, and one bronze.

At the Uzbekistan Open, earlier this year, Maana clocked 1:04:47 to bag the gold medal and further her cause for Olympic qualification. She even participated in the recently concluded events in Serbia and Italy and even went on to better her national record in the same. It was by virtue of her Olympic B-qualification time, which she achieved during the qualification cycle, that Maana was awarded an entry to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics through university quota. Even though a medal would be unrealistic, the experience gained at the Games would be invaluable for the 21-year old.