New Delhi: Sajan Prakash became the first Indian swimmer ever to qualify for Olympics by achieving ‘A’ qualification mark when he clocked 1:56.38s in the men’s 200m butterfly event at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome on Saturday. His time is better than the Olympic A qualification mark of 1:56.48s.
Six Indian swimmers had achieved the B qualification in the 2019-20 Olympic qualification period. B qualification is wild card entry while ‘A’ qualification is an automatic berth. While many Indian swimmers have competed at the Olympics before, no one qualified directly by cracking the A qualification mark.
I congratulate @swim_sajan for becoming the 1st Indian swimmer to qualify for #Tokyo2020 as he clocks 1:56:38 in men’s 200m butterfly at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome. It shows the commitment of our athletes towards making India proud. pic.twitter.com/27LMd3OVj4
— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) June 26, 2021
On Friday, Srihari Nataraj came agonizingly close to becoming the first Indian swimmer to achieve the ‘A’ cut at the same tournament. In the 100m backstroke event, he won his race in 53.90 seconds, 0.05 seconds short of the qualifying time set at 53.85 seconds for the Tokyo Olympics.
Prakash’s ‘A’ time qualification also means that 20-year-old Nataraj is set to miss out on the Tokyo Olympics. This is set to be Prakash’s second Olympics. He had been the male swimmer nominated by India at Rio Olympics.
