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It was a case of now or never for Indian swimmer Sajan Prakash (right) at the 58th Sette Colli Trophy in Rome last Saturday.
Having missed the Tokyo Olympics A qualification mark of 1min 56.48sec in the 200m butterfly by 0.48 seconds at the Belgrade Trophy swimming championships in the Serbian capital city the previous Saturday, Sajan had one last meet to book his ticket for Tokyo.
The Kerala swimmer achieved it in Rome with a timing of 1:56.38 in the heats, 0.10 seconds quicker than the Olympic qualifying time to become the first Indian swimmer to make the direct cut to the Olympics. "This is a historic moment for Indian swimming and we are all thrilled with Sajan's performance," said Monal Chokshi, secretary-general, Swimming Federation of India. "His achievement has broken the glass ceiling in Indian swimming which will inspire generations to come."
Tokyo will also be the 27-year-old's second straight Olympics, which no other Indian swimmer has achieved. He participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 200m butterfly via the universality quota and finished 28th in the heats with 1:59.31.
He has about three weeks to take to the pool at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, where he aims to enter the final. His 200m butterfly event heats are scheduled for July 26.
It was back to training from Wednesday after reaching Dubai with his long-time coach S. Pradeep Kumar in an attempt to be better prepared and focus on cutting down his timing. "That is the realistic goal," Sajan told News18.com.
He is relieved that he made it to Tokyo despite the tough phase that he went through over the past two years including a career-threatening injury - a slipped disc in the neck.
"It was difficult," he said. "Many, including people I am closest to, didn't believe that I could do it. Yet, there were friends I consider my family who supported me and believed in me. I made them proud with whatever I did last Saturday. I have not felt this happy in my life."
Sajan said he will take his Rio experience to Tokyo. "The first time, it was a big learning process for me to see world-class swimmers," he said. "I felt I was nowhere compared to them.
"I decided that I needed to work harder to reach where they were. That's when I realised I needed to work on recovery, diet, whatever was important to make me get there."
In August last year, he switched his training base from Bangkok to Dubai as the Gulf emirate has better physiotherapy facilities. "I could not swim butterfly for the first three months. I did only freestyle because of the injury," he said. "Slowly, we built up the speed. From February this year, we specifically worked on those skills and strategy.
"Every time I saw myself improving in training, that was a big positive sign towards me going and doing it at the last minute in Rome."
Born in Idukki, Kerala, Sajan initially swam under coach Saju Sebastien at Neyveli in Tamil Nadu, before teaming up with Pradeep.
"He was timid, so we moved him from 50m sprint to 200m," said Pradeep. "He's quiet now, but used to be naughty earlier. Still, he was easy to coach, and never had airs."
Sajan is now seen as the most consistent 200m butterfly performer in the world since the Rio Games. "I qualified for Rio with 1:59 and here I am doing 1:56," he said. "Once you taste the Olympics, you want to do it again and again. Every sportsperson has that instinct. Every time we go to a meet, we do well but we want to achieve more."
On Sunday, Srihari Natraj became the second Indian swimmer to make the direct Olympic cut.
He clocked 53.77 seconds in the 100m backstroke in a time trial in Rome and achieved the 53.85sec A mark for the Tokyo Games.
Indo-Asian News Service
