Maana becomes third Indian swimmer to make it to Olympics

New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) Female swimmer Maana Patel will compete at this month's Tokyo Olympic Games in the women's 100m backstroke as she has earned a Universality quota place, the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) said on Friday.The 21-year-old from Gujarat is the third Indian swimmer to get a ticket to Japan. Last month, Srihari Nataraj (100m backstroke) and Sajan Prakash (200m butterfly) had cracked the Olympic A qualification mark to earn automatic berths in their respective events.Maana's first international competition of the season was the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in April. She had clocked 1:04.47 seconds for gold medal in women's 100m backstroke.Last month at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome, Sajan Prakash became the first ever Indian swimmer to achieve Olympic A qualification time in
men's 200m butterfly. The 27-year-old had clocked 1 minute 56.38 seconds in the men's 200m butterfly event which was better than the Olympic A qualification time of 1:56.48.Nataraj was the second Indian swimmer to achieve Olympic A qualification time.He clocked 53.77 secs during the time trial at Sette Colli Trophy in Rome which was better than the Olympic A qualification mark of 53.85 secs.
--IANS nns/kh