Tashkent, April 15: Top Indian swimmer Srihari Natarajan won the gold medal but narrowly missed the elusive Olympic ‘A’ qualification time in the 100m backstroke event at the Uzbekistan Open Championship here on Thursday.
The-20-year-old, clocked his personal best of 54.10s in the heats before bettering it to 54.07s in the final event to win gold. The Olympics ‘A’ cut for 100m backstroke event for men is 53.85s, thus missing the mark by just 0.22s.
While a B-mark means the swimmer will receive an invitation to the event if the total available quota places are not filled an A standard ensures an automatic berth to line up at the Summer Games. No Indian has till date achieved the A standard.
Maana Patel clocked 1:04.47s in the women’s 100m backstroke event to take home gold.
Sajan Prakash bagged his third gold of the tournament in the 400m men’s freestyle event clocking 3:56.03s.
Shivani Kataria took home the yellow metal in the women’s 400m freestyle. Chandigarh swimmer Chahat Arora took home the gold in the women’s 100m breaststroke event. (PTI)
