Srihari Nataraj finishes 7th in 100m backstroke swimming Commonwealth Games 2022 final

Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj finished seventh in the men's 100m backstroke final at the ongoing Commonwealth Games 2022 (CWG 2022) on July 30.

Swimming in Lane 1, Srihari Nataraj clocked 54.31s to finish seventh. South Africa's Pieter Coetze won the gold medal with a time of 53.78s.

England's Brodie Paul Williams came second with a time of 53.91s and Bradley Woodward won the bronze medal, clocking 54.06s.

Srihari had a good reaction time of 0.58s and clocked 28.00s at the half-way mark but couldn't keep up with the pace of the leaders in the final 50m and ended up just 0.25 seconds behind Woodward, who finished third.

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Srihari Nataraj improved from his timing in the heats and the semi-finals but in the end he was just a tad behind the winners.

In the heats, the Indian swimmer clocked 54.68s and bettered it to 54.55 in the semi-finals and went a little better in the final to clock 54.31s.

Srihari will be in action at the CWG 2022 in the 50m and 200m backstroke events.

Srihari Nataraj was on cusp of history

The Bengaluru-based swimmer could not breach his personal best of 53.77s on the night and if he had won a medal, he would have become the second Indian swimmer to win a Commonwealth Games medal. Prasanta Karmakar was India's first CWG swimming medalist, winning bronze in the para-swimming event in 2010.

At the Tokyo Olympics last year, Srihari was the first Indian to swim in the classification A heat. He clocked 54:31s to finish 27th in the men's 100m backstroke event.

Srihari has received good assistance from the Sports Authority of India and has also done well, competing in a plethora of events in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games. He's also part of the Sports Ministry's Target Olympic Podium Scheme.