India have so far won 14 medals in swimming at the Asian Games. The last time India won a medal in swimming at the Asian Games was at the 2014 edition, when Sandeep Sejwal clinched bronze in the men’s 50m breaststroke. This time, there are several stars in the swimming contingent, including Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash, among others. Vedaant Madhavan, son of actor R. Madhavan, is also part of the squad.
He is part of the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay team, with Sajan Prakash, Dhakshan Shashikumar and Aneesh Sunil being the other members, which failed to make the final on Monday. The Indian quartet finished ninth among 13 teams with a timing of 7:24.32. The top eight teams qualified for the final. Qatar (7:24.10) pipped India for the eighth spot in qualifying.
After the qualifying round, Vedaant wrote on his Instagram Story: “Missed finals by 0.2 and best Indian by 0.5, 200 free day after.”
Vedaant will compete in two more events, the 200m freestyle (September 23) and the 200m backstroke (September 25).
R. Madhavan shared Vedaant’s story with a ‘gratitude’ emoticon.
Meanwhile, Srihari Nataraj finished 10th in the 50m backstroke final at the Asian Games. Nataraj, a two-time Olympian, clocked 25.52 seconds to finish last in the final, slower than his 25.37-second effort in the heats earlier in the day.
China’s Jiayu Xu smashed the Games record en route to the gold medal. He clocked 24.04 seconds to erase Japanese swimmer Junya Koga’s mark of 24.28 set at the Incheon edition in 2014.
Nataraj had clocked 25.37 seconds, the same as Iran’s Homer Abbasi, to finish third in his heat and joint ninth overall and qualify for the final.
The 25-year-old, competing in his third Asian Games, has a personal best of 25.18 seconds in the event, which he set in Belgrade in June 2021.
Rishabh Das, who finished sixth in the men’s 100m backstroke on Sunday, clocked 25.41 seconds to narrowly miss the 50m backstroke final. He finished 11th overall.
In the men’s 50m freestyle, Akash Mani and Geetesh Shah finished 26th and 28th respectively, while South Korea’s Youngbeom Kim set a new Games record with a 21.71-second effort.
Akash topped his heat with a personal-best effort of 23.43 seconds, while Geetesh clocked 23.57 seconds to finish last in his heat.
Danush Suresh also failed to qualify for the 100m backstroke final, finishing eighth in his heat and 22nd overall with a time of 1:03.46.