Swimming
Srihari Nataraj qualifies for the Commonwealth & Asian Games in 50m backstroke
Comfortably breached the qualifying marks of both multi-sport tournaments in the heats at the National C'ships.
Srihari Nataraj won 7 medals at 2025 Asian Aquatics C'ships.
Srihari Nataraj qualified for the 2026 Commonwealth & Asian Games in the 50m backstroke event with a solid run in the heats of the National Championships in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
He clocked a time of 25.21s to top the heats and comfortably breached the qualification mark of 25.34s for CWG and 25.39s for the Asian Games.
He is the second Indian after Sajan Prakash (200m Butterfly) to achieve the Individual qualification mark for both the coming multisport events.
He, however, marginally missed out on his personal best of 25.18s from 2021. He continued his form and bagged the gold medal with a time of 25.32s in the finals.
Elsewhere, Saanvi Deshwal clocked a Best Indian time in the women's 200m Individual Medley to bag the gold medal ahead of Tanishi Gupta (2.20.61s).
She clocks 2:19.15s to better the previous record of Hashika Ramachandra (2:21.15s) from the 2023 National Championships by two seconds.
Meanwhile, the youngster Dhinidhi Desinghu also started her individual campaign, clocking a good time of 2:03.72s to top the women's 200m freestyle heats.
In the finals, she improved her time and clocked 2:03.07s but couldn't better her own national record of 2:02.84s. The Asian Games qualification mark in this event was set at 2:00.76s.