Asian Games 2026: Srihari finishes 10th in 50m swimming backstroke final

Tokyo: Srihari Nataraj finished a disappointing 10th in the 50m backstroke final at the Asian Games as Indian swimmers endured another forgettable day with most of them failing to make it beyond the heats here on Monday.

Nataraj, a two-time Olympian, clocked 25.52 seconds to finish last in the final, slower than his 25.37-second effort in the heats earlier in the day.

China's Jiayu Xu smashed the Games record enroute the gold medal. He clocked 24.04 to erase Japanese swimmer Junya Koga's mark of 24.28 set at the Incheon edition in 2014.


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Nataraj had clocked 25.37 seconds, the same as Iran's Homer Abbasi, to finish third in his heat and joint ninth overall and qualify for the final.

The 25-year-old, competing in his third Asian Games, has a personal best of 25.18 seconds in the event, which he set in Belgrade in June 2021.

Rishabh Das, who finished sixth in the men's 100m backstroke on Sunday, clocked 25.41 seconds to narrowly miss the 50m backstroke final. He finished 11th overall.

In the men's 50m freestyle, Akash Mani and Geetesh Shah finished 26th and 28th respectively, while South Korea's Youngbeom Kim set a new Games record with a 21.71-second effort.

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Akash topped his heat with a personal best effort of 23.43 seconds, while Geetesh clocked 23.57 seconds to finish last in his heat.

Danush Suresh too failed to qualify for the 100m backstroke final, finishing eighth in his heat and 22nd overall with a time of 1:03.46.

Sajan Prakash, Dhakshan Shashikumar, Vedaant Madhavan and Aneesh Sunil also failed to make the men's 4x200m freestyle relay final. The Indian quartet finished ninth among 13 teams in 7:24.32.