CHENNAI: At the sprawling Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Sunday, Srihari Nataraj's maiden Olympic outing was a bittersweet occasion. While competing alongside the world's best swimmers at the Olympic stage was an enriching experience that will stay with the youngster, he was personally expecting to do better than his timing of 54.31s in the 100m backstroke event. That effort saw him finish at 27th position in the overall standings in the heats as a spot in the semifinals expectedly remained out of grasp.
He had achieved a personal best of 53.77s just a few weeks ago at a qualifying event in Rome, which was a seminal moment for Indian swimming as he, alongside Sajan Prakash, became the first from the country to make the A cut for the Olympics. It had given Srihari reason for optimism.
"I was actually confident that I could better my personal best," Srihari offered, after finishing fifth in the group of eight swimmers in his heat section. If he had even matched his personal best, it would have been good enough to finish among the top-16 swimmers and qualify for the semifinals. But having peaked in Rome, both the swimmer and his coach, Nihar Ameen, pointed out that it was difficult to repeat that feat in such a short span of time.
"After achieving the timing in Rome, it was difficult to back it up in a short span as the recovery to be in top shape takes a bit of time. I did the best I could in the training time of 3 weeks that I had but the absence of turnaround time took a toll," the 20-year-old explained, without intending to offer any excuses.
The event in Rome took place in the last week of June in what was the final qualifying event for the swimmers. The disruption caused by Covid through the month of May had thrown a spanner in the works, and that the swimmers were able to even make the last-dash trip to Serbia and Rome amid all the uncertainty was a bonus.
Monal Chokshi, the secretary of the Swimming Federation of India (SFI), admitted that a month or two of recovery and training between Rome and Tokyo would have helped, but they were having to navigate an unprecedented health crisis.
"It is his first Olympics. He would have been a little intimidated. With the timing he achieved in Rome, he could have been in the semifinals. The gap between Rome and Tokyo was very little. You cannot achieve two peaks so fast," he said.
The fact that Srihari did not have his physio by his side in Tokyo — due to the limit on number of officials — wasn't ideal either. "Of course, he got support from other physios attached to other teams. But having his own physio, who understands his requirements, would have certainly helped Srihari do better," Chokshi conceded.