Hanari runo

India Head Coach Nihar Ameen: Twenty-four-year-old Srihari Nataraj opened India’s medal tally at the 11th Asian Aquatics Championships here at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad by clinching a Silver medal in the 200m freestyle and 50m backstroke for men.

He clocked an impressive 1:48.47 seconds in 200m freestyle, finishing behind China’s Haibo XU who clocked 1:46.83 to bag the gold and in 50m backstroke he clocked 25.46 seconds to win another Silver. China’s Gukailai Wang bagged the Gold with a timing of 25.11 seconds.

Now focusing on middle-distance events apart from his pet events that is 50m and 100m backstroke, Srihari got off to a strong start in the 200m freestyle in the first race of the finals on Sunday evening. Swimming in lane no.1, he was on-par with Haibo, with his first 50m split at 25.10 while the Chinese swimmer’s was 24.93 seconds.