Indian women's swimmer Maana Patel has qualified for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics through the University quota. With this, she became the first Indian female swimmer to do so. From this quota, one female and one male athlete qualify for the Olympics.
Meanwhile, SAI tweeted, "Many congratulations to backstroke swimmer Maana Patel who becomes the 1st female and 3rd Indian swimmer to qualify for #TokyoOlympics Patel qualified through universality quota. #Cheer4India."
Regarding qualification, Maana said, "I was happy with my timing in Uzbekistan. Nothing great. But to get back into competitive racing and managing 1:04 was good. I knew I was on the right track." Last week, Sajan Prakash became the first Indian swimmer to qualify for the upcoming Olympics as he clocked 1:56:38 in men's 200m butterfly at the Sette Colli Trophy. The qualification cut-off was 1:56:48.
Later on Wednesday, Srihari Nataraj became the second Indian swimmer to qualify for the showpiece event after his 53.77 seconds effort in the 100m Backstroke event in a time trial at the Settecolli Swim Meet in Rome was ratified. Meanwhile, the Olympic qualification time (A time) for the 100m Backstroke event set at 53.85 seconds. In June, the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) had announced Maana Patel as one of their nominations for the Universality Places for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The nominations were communicated to FINA on June 20 through the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). Participation in swimming events at the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020 is being governed by the qualification pathway published by the world body of aquatics viz FINA. The FINA qualification pathway provides for two (2) qualification times i.e. Olympic qualification time (A time) and Olympic Selection time (B time).