She had sustained a serious ankle injury back in 2019 and made her comeback to professional swimming earlier this year.
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Indian swimmer Maana Patel became the first female athlete from the country to qualify in swimming for the Olympic Games. Patel qualified for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics via the universality quota on Friday, creating history in the process. The 21-year-old will be part of the nation’s swimming team for The Games alongside Sajan Prakash and Srihari Natarajan. She is all set to compete in the women’s 100m backstroke event. She had sustained a serious ankle injury back in 2019 and made her comeback to professional swimming earlier this year. Patel said that qualifying for The Games was an amazing feeling and that the prospect of competing with the best in the world gave her goosebumps.
“It’s an amazing feeling. I have heard about the Olympics from fellow swimmers and watched it on the television and seen a lot of pictures,” the swimmer from Gujarat said to Olympics.com. “But to be there this time, competing with the best in the world, just gives me goosebumps,” Patel added.
She had achieved qualification to The Games via the universality quota. It allows one male and one female competitor from a country to participate in The Games, provided no other swimmer from the same gender qualifies or receives a FINA invite based on his or her Olympic Selection time (B time).
Speaking about her long period out of action due to the ankle injury in 2019, Patel said that it was a tough year to come back. However, she also mentioned the pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures to be blessings in disguise for her body. The lockdowns helped her recover well, but there were times when frustration had crept in.
“It was a tough year to come back after the injury,” Patel said. “Though the pandemic and the lockdown was a blessing in disguise as it helped me recuperate well, but then later the frustration crept in. I am not used to staying away from the water for this long,” she added.
While the 21-year-old will take part in the women’s 100m backstroke event, her teammates will be gearing up for their own competitions. Prakash and Natarajan will compete in the men’s 200m butterfly and 100m backstroke races respectively. Both had breached the Olympic A mark at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome last month.
Sajan Prakash became the first-ever Indian swimmer to qualify for the Olympic Games by breaching the ‘A’ standard time. “I have worked very hard for this, and I was confident with the way I had trained,” Prakash had said after his qualification.
“This was my last chance, and I knew I had to do it here. Had come so close to the qualifying mark in the previous meets. But my Coach Pradeep Sir and I planned my tapering in such a way that I would peak at these two events in Serbia and Rome,” he added.
