Nanterre (France): India's swimming campaign at the Paris Olympics came to an end with both Srihari Nataraj and Dhinidhi Desinghu failing to progress to the semifinals of their respective events here on Sunday.
Nataraj finished joint-second in the slower heat with a timing of 55.01s but the 23-year-old was 33rd in the overall standing for the 100m men's backstroke event. The 16 fastest swimmers from the heats qualify to the semifinals.
The performance was far from Nataraj's personal best of 53.77s and was considerably slower than his season best time of 54.68s.
Making her Olympic debut, 14-year-old Dhinidhi, the youngest member of the Indian contingent, did well to top her 200m women's freestyle heat.
Indian🇮🇳 swimmer Srihari Nataraj, finished in 33rd spot in the Men’s 100m backstroke heats, clocking 55.01 seconds.
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 28, 2024
The top-16 qualified for the semifinals.#Cheer4Bharat
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Swimming in heat 1, which is the slowest heat, Dhinidhi touched the pads at 2:06.96. But the Indian finished 23rd out of 30 participants, which included three-time Olympic champion Australia's Ariarne Titmus.
With a boisterous crowd cheering him on, Lon Marchand began his home Olympics by cruising to the fastest time in the preliminaries of the 400-meter individual medley.
The 22-year-old Marchand pulled away in his heat to touch in 4 minutes, 8.30 seconds, with some 15,000 fans at La Defense Arena chanting on every stroke.
Marchand is looking for his first gold, and he'll be a heavy favorite in the evening final. He was more than a second ahead of Britain's Max Litchfield (4:09.51), who was followed by Japan's Daiya Seto (4:10.92) and American Carson Foster (4:11.07).
