Asian Aquatics C'ships: Srihari Nataraj picks 100m freestyle bronze, takes his tally to five medals

Ahmedabad, Sep 30 (IANS) Srihari Nataraj once again stood tall for India, clinching a bronze in the Men’s 100m Freestyle and extending his medal haul to five medals while Rohit Benedicton clinched a silver medal in the Men’s 50m Butterfly to bring India’s total up to nine on Day Three of the 11th Asian Aquatics Championships at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex here on Tuesday.

Srihari Nataraj has so far won three medals in individual events and two in relays as he continued to lead India’s charge at home.

Drawn in lane five in the Men’s 100m Freestyle, Srihari paced his race smartly. He turned third at the 50m mark with China’s Haoyu Wang (49.19) and Qatar’s Ali Tamer Hassan (49.46) ahead, while Akash Mani (50.45) was close on his heels in fourth. In the second lap, Srihari dug in, maintaining his rhythm to hold off the chasing pack and secure bronze in 49.96 seconds.

“I’ve had a good season this year, and I think training has been going really well. I was fast in the heats, and with the way my training has been, I thought I’d be much faster here. But these guys swam a brilliant race as well, and I’m just glad I got my hand on the wall to be on the podium,” Srihari said after the final.

“It feels great, walking out, finishing the race, the victory ceremony; the crowd is really insane. We have a big team here, a lot of coaches, a lot of parents, everyone’s flown down, and it’s been tremendous the past three days. The energy is amazing. Usually in swimming, you can’t hear anything while racing, but in the last 50m of the relay yesterday, I don’t know who it was, I could hear so much, just screams cheering us on the whole time. It’s a great feeling,” he added.

In the Men’s 50m Butterfly, Rohit B Benedicton started well and went on to clinch the silver medal with a time of 23.89, closely losing out to Kazakhstan’s Adilbek Mussin, who finished first with 23.74.

Meanwhile, in the Women’s 100m Freestyle, India’s Dhinidhi Desinghu and Shashidhara Rujula booked places in the final but couldn’t break through the top half of the field, finishing sixth and eighth respectively.

Results:

Swimming

Men

400m Freestyle

Haibo Xu (China) 3:.49.29

Huy Hoang Nguyen (Vietnam) 3:51.63

Hoe Yean Khiew (Malesia) 3:52.63

100m Freestyle: Haiyu Wang (China) 49.19;

Ali Tamer Hassan (Qatar) 49.46

Srihari Nataraj (India) 49.96

200m Individual Medley

Yichen XIE (China) 1:59.97