He had an opportunity to finish in the first place but was only marginally beaten to it by Abeiku Jackson of Ghana.
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Indian swimmer Sajan Prakash displayed a masterful performance at the Tokyo Olympics in heat 2 of the men’s 100m butterfly event on Thursday. Prakash mounted a brilliant comeback to finish in second place in the race. He had an opportunity to finish in the first place but was only marginally beaten to it by Abeiku Jackson of Ghana. Despite the disappointment of not making it through to the later stages of the 200m men’s butterfly event, Thursday’s performance is quite admirable and impressive. Prakash seemed disappointed at the end of the race as he could have finished in the first place but nonetheless, it is a performance that will fill him with a lot of confidence.
On Thursday, Prakash was in sixth place when he reached the 50m mark and at one point, it seemed like history was going to repeat itself cause in the 200m men’s butterfly event, he finished in a similar position. This time around, however, the Indian swimmer used all of his skill and experience to move up four places in the final 50m of the race for a brilliant second-place finish. He had even gone ahead of Jackson at one point but just could not hold his lead. The Ghanaian reached the finish line only 0.6 seconds ahead of Prakash.
Despite Prakash’s excellent performance, he will not take any further part in the event. Overall, the Indian swimmer finished in 46th place, which is not good enough to make it through to the semi-finals. Only the top 16 swimmers with the fastest time will make it to that stage. None of the swimmers that participated in his heat managed to break into the overall top 16. Prakash was out of the reckoning with three heats yet to happen. He was in the 23rd spot at the time.
However, he can be proud of his exceptional performance in the heat that he participated in. India has never had any luck in swimming at the Olympics, yet Prakash’s second-place finish after being in sixth place at the 50m mark is nothing short of inspirational. He might be disappointed but there are several positives in the swimmer’s performance.
Prakash’s experience played a major role in his finish as he picked up the pace as soon as he crossed the 50m mark. Until then, it was like the swimmer was keeping in touch with the rest of the pack, but did not accelerate. When he did push on, he left the entire field behind as his opponents started tiring. He was in first place for a short period of time but was just marginally beaten to the finish line by Jackson.
