Maana Patel Becomes 3rd Indian Swimmer to Qualify for Olympics

Maana Patel's first international competition of the season was the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in April.

Backstroke swimmer Maana Patel, who becomes the 1st female and 3rd Indian swimmer to qualify for Tokyo Olympics.

Image: PTI

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.