Lagatar24 desk
Birmingham, July 30: Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj has made it to the finals of men’s 100m backstroke after clocking 54:55 seconds in the semi-final event of the Commonwealth Games 2022.
The 21-year-old secured the fourth spot in his heat and seventh overall to secure a berth in the medal event that will take place on Sunday. Meanwhile, South African Pieter Coetze was the fastest swimmer across both the semi-finals, clocking 53.67s on day one.
The Bengaluru swimmer will now aim on becoming only the second Indian swimmer to bag a medal in the Commonwealth Games since Prasanta Karmakar’s bronze in the para-swimming event at the Delhi CWG in 2010.
At the Tokyo Olympics last year, Nataraj became the first Indian to swim in the classification A heat. The swimmer had clocked 54:31s to finish 27th in the men’s 100m backstroke event.
Notably, in men’s 400m Freestyle heats, Kushagra Rawat failed to advance to the semifinals after clocking 3:57.45 to finish 14th.
Sajan Prakash also missed out in the men’s 50m butterfly event as he ended up eighth clocking 25.01s.
