Commonwealth Games 2022 swimming: India’s Srihari Nataraj breaks national record in men’s 200m backstroke

Tokyo Olympian Srihari Nataraj broke India’s national record in the men’s 200m backstroke but failed to qualify for the event’s final at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, UK, on Tuesday.

Srihari Nataraj clocked 2:00.84s to finish third in heat 2 at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre. He was ninth across the heats, which had 20 competitors. With only the top eight making the cut for the finals, Nataraj missed out on the final by just 0.19 seconds.

Srihari Nataraj was placed as a reserve but with none of the eight finalists pulling out, it was an end of a decent campaign at CWG 2022 for the 21-year-old Tokyo Olympian.

India’s previous national record in the 200m backstroke event was 2:01.70s achieved by Srihari Nataraj in 2019.

Earlier at Birmingham 2022, Srihari Nataraj became the first Indian swimmer to qualify for multiple finals at the Commonwealth Games.

He nearly broke his own national record of 25.18s in the 50m backstroke final on Monday in his best finish of fifth at CWG in 25.23s. 

Srihari Nataraj also qualified for the 100m backstroke final where he came seventh.

Later in the day, India’s freestyle swimmers Advait Page and Kushagra Rawat qualified for the 1500m freestyle final after finishing seventh and eighth in the heats, respectively. The heats had 10 swimmers and the top eight qualified for the final.

Advait Page timed 15:39.25s in heat 1 while Rawat clocked 15:47.77s in the second heat. Sam Short of Australia topped the heats in 15:02.66s.