58TH SETTE COLLI TROPHY
- Friday, June 25th – Sunday, June 27th
- Swimming Stadium of the Foro Italico, Rome, Italy
- LCM (50m)
- Olympic Qualifying Competition
- Start Lists
- Day 1 Recap
- Results
For the 2nd time in 3 days, Indian backstroker Srihari Nataraj has broken the National Record in the men’s 100 meter backstroke.
This time, swimming in a Sunday time trial at the Sette Colli Trophy meet in Rome, Nataraj swam 53.77. That improved upon his swim of 53.90 from Friday’s individual event, which in turn improved upon his 54.07 done at the controversial Uzbekistan Championships done earlier this year.
That Uzbekistan meet was controversial with claims from both domestic and Indian swimmers that official results were falsified to give swimmers faster times than they achieved. Ultimately, FINA invalidated those results.
While Nataraj’s 100 backstroke race at that meet was not explicitly among the results questioned, his swims this week in Rome validated his results.
The time also makes Nataraj the second-ever swimmer from India to achieve an Olympic ‘A’ cut. He follows Sajan Prakash, who did the same in the men’s 200 fly just a day earlier.
Splits Comparison
| Srihari Nataraj | Srihari Nataraj | |
| New Indian Record – Sunday |
Former Indian Record – Friday
|
|
| 50m | 26.18 | 26.10 |
| 100m | 27.59 | 27.80 |
| Final Time | 53.77 | 53.90 |
India has never won a medal in swimming among its 28 all-time Olympic medals. Their highest swimming finish at the 2016 Olympics came in the men’s 200 fly, where Prakash placed 28th.
Nataraj, who is only 20, finished 36th in the 100 back at the 2019 World Championships His 53.77 from Sunday would have ranked him 10th in the prelims, tied with Canada’s Markus Thormeyer, and advanced him to the semi-finals.
A great day for Indian swimming.
There is also another event that should make Indian swimmers feel proud
As reported earlier the Uzbekistan meet was invalidated mainly due to the spirit shown by Indian Swimmer Likith acting as a whistleblower. I would say that Likith a talented swimmer himself should be given a special invite to Tokyo to encourage all such swimmers over the world to stand up to any form of injustice without the fear of repercussions.
All the best India!
Way to go!! Congratulations!!!
Great to see indian swimming going in the right direction finally
For sure. And, because India has generally not had much Olympic success relative to its population size, this is a big opportunity for them to move to the front of the line for funding.