Disappointed I didn’t get gold in 50m backstroke, it was my best chance, says Srihari Nataraj at Asian Aquatics

Ahmedabad, Sep 2 After a roaring start for the Indian contingent at the 11th Asian Aquatic Championships here at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad, double Olympian Srihari Nataraj reflected on his performance and the opening day results, which saw some close finishes by Indian swimmers.

After back-to-back silver medals in 200m freestyle and 50m backstroke for men, Srihari returned to the pool to help India win a bronze in the 4x100m medley relay.

This medal haul ended a 16-year-long wait; the last time Indian swimmers won medals at this prestigious event was in China, 2009, when Vidhawal Khade, Sandeep Sejwal, and Aaron D’Souza finished on the podium.

“It was a big start to our campaign. It was a much better Day 1 than some of us thought. We came close to winning more medals with Dhinidhi (finished fifth in 200m freestyle) and Rohit (finished 4th in 100m butterfly), missing out closely in their events. We were all confident Rohit would win a medal too. It’s a young team with good depth. Quite a few made it to the finals, and that’s a good start by itself. It will keep everyone motivated for the next three days,” expressed the 24-year-old Srihari, who is pursuing his MBA at Jain Deemed-to-be University in Bengaluru.

Speaking about his own performance, Srihari said, “The heats weren’t the best for me. I didn’t feel so great, and I was placed in lane 1 for 200m freestyle; it wasn’t what I would have preferred. Swimming in lane 1 was a blessing in disguise. The second 50m, I was swimming blind, and even in the last 50, I couldn’t see my opponents, but sometimes that’s good. After the race, it truly sank in that it was a packed gallery and everyone was cheering for me. It was special to win a medal in front of the Chief Minister. Even during the victory ceremony, the crowd took off That’s something I had never experienced before. In a major meet in front of a home crowd.”

Swimming the 50m backstroke soon after his 200m freestyle feat, Srihari felt that it was a setback. He believes that the 50m backstroke was his best chance to have bagged a gold. He explained, “It could have been a gold in 50m backstroke. My personal best was the gold medal time here. But an event just before that and two swims in the morning during heats, I did feel the fatigue.”

Talking about switching to middle distance and how he has been enjoying this shift in focus to 200m freestyle, and what this means for his preparations for next year with the two big events in Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, Srihari said, “I’m still going to swim the backstrokes, 200m freestyle is an event I was swimming since I was an age-grouper. And I swim it well even without training specifically for it. I have good rhythm in my stroke, train well, this season has been a complete switch from swimming backstroke to freestyle and to be able to repeat 1:48 in 200m freestyle is good and to get one whole second off is not very common but I have been able to do it so for next year there will be a lot of work that I will be doing on this event,” he said.

Srihari has a handful of events to go. He will be seen in action in the 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 4x200m freestyle relay, and 4x100m freestyle relay.

Results:

Swimming

Men

4x100m Medley Relay: 1. China (Gukailai Wang, Haiyang Qin, Taiyu Li, Haoyu Wang) 3:36.93; 2. Chinese Taipei (Mu Lun Chuang, Hsin Hao Wang, Kuan Hung Wang, Kun Ming Fu) 3:39.40; 3. India (Rishabh Das, Likith Selvaraj Prema, Rohit B Benedicton, Srihari Nataraj) 3:40.87

Women

1500m Freestyle: 1. Pac Tung Nikita Lam (Hong Kong) 17:08.36; 2. Kha Nhi Nguyen (Vietnam) 17:23.60; 3. Thitirat Charoensup (Thailand) 17:30.36

4x100m Medley Relay: 1. China (Jiawei Li, Yijing Wang, Zhenqi Gong, Mingyu Luo) 4:06.16; 2. Japan (Misaki Kasahara, Mana Ishikawa, Manami Miyamoto, Minami Yui) 4:08.54; 3 Hong Kong (Tsz Yu Ashley Chan, Jialian Candice Gao, Wui Kiu Man, Sum Yiu Li) 4:12.79

Diving

Women's 1m Springboard: 1. Linxi Ye (China) 264.35; 2. Sijia Li (China) 253.10; 3. Ziyi Wang (Hong Kong) 218.90.

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