Swimmers Srihari and Sajan may travel to Serbia and Italy for Olympic qualification

CHENNAI: In a welcome development, Indian swimmers Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash are likely to travel to Serbia and Italy in June to compete in Olympic qualification meets. Both Srihari and Sajan have achieved the B qualification mark for the Tokyo Olympics but need the A mark to seal automatic qualification. The cut-off date for qualification is June 27. While Srihari is currently in Bengaluru, Sajan is training in Dubai.  

Both of them were hoping to participate in the Mare Nostrum meet in Monaco at the end of this month but had to miss out due to travel and quarantine restrictions. The Swimming Federation of India (SFI) has now started the visa process for Srihari and Sajan to take part in the Belgrade Tour in Serbia, scheduled on June 19 and 20, followed by the Settecolli International Trophy in Rome, Italy, from June 25-27. The confirmation about the European trip should come next week.

“We have started the visa process for the swimmers. Serbia does not have any quarantine requirements and hasn’t put India on the red list for travel either. Since the swimmers will be going to Serbia first, the travel to Italy won’t be a problem,” SFI secretary Monal Chokshi told this daily on Friday.

While Italy does have quarantine requirements, the swimmers are likely to travel to Serbia early so that they can spend around 10 days there and not have to undergo quarantine in Italy.

“Italy’s quarantine requirements can be waived if Indian swimmers are in Serbia for 10 days and travel from there. So the swimmers will leave for Serbia around June 9 or 10 and not have any quarantine in Italy,” the official informed.

Their last event was the Uzbekistan Open Championship in April, where Srihari fell short of achieving the A qualification time in the 100m backstroke event by just 0.22 seconds.   

Meanwhile, three other Indian swimmers who have achieved the B qualification mark – Kushagra Rawat, Aryan Makhija and Advait Page – are currently based in the United States and looking to make the cut through competitions there.