Srihari Nataraj has qualified for the finals of men's 100m backstroke after clocking 54:55 seconds in the semifinals at the Commonwealth Games 2022.
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Srihari will become only the second Indian swimmer since para-swimmer Prasanta Karmakar to win a CWG medal. He finished fourth in the heat and seventh overall in the Commonwealth Games 2022. The 21-year-old play the final on 31 July, Sunday. Although Pieter Coetze of South Africa was the fastest swimmer across both the semi-finals, clocking 53.67s on day one of the competition.
When Nataraj was training at the national camp in Bangalore, his father passed away last year in January. The swimmer, who lives in Bangalore, drove 23km from the Padukone-Dravid Centre for Excellence to his home in Malleswaram to be with his family. "It helped me, gave me something else to put my energy into," he said.
Nataraj is the second Indian swimmer to bag a medal in the Commonwealth Games since Prasanta Karmakar's historic bronze in the para-swimming event at the Delhi CWG in 2010.
The Bangalore boy also proved himself in the Tokyo Olympics last year. He had become the first Indian to swim in the classification A heat. The young swimmer had clocked 54:31s to finish 27th in the men's 100m backstroke event.
Only at the age of two, he was Introduced to swimming by his parents. The young swimmer has achieved more than 100 medals across junior and senior national championships. He also won Khelo India events since 2010. Nataraj has won overall 27 gold, 7 silver and 4 bronze medals at senior national championships since 2016. He already represented the country at all major multi-discipline events in such a short time of his career.
On the other hand, Kushagra Rawat did not qualify to the semifinals. He failed after clocking 3:57.45 to finish 14th overall in the men's 400m Freestyle heats. Sajan Prakash has also failed in the men's 50m butterfly event as he finished eighth clocking 25.01s.