Rude shock for Indian swimmers

Four young Indian swimmers toiled hard over the last four years, with the single focus of making their London dreams a reality. Over the last 11 months, starting with Sandeep Sejwal in July last year, four swimmers including Virdhawal Khade, Aaron D’Souza and Saurabh Sangevakar each attained the Olympics Standard Time (‘B’ qualifying mark).

Given the current FINA rule of a cap of 900 swimmers for the 2012 Olympics, the going was always tough for Indian lads, but their chances received a body blow on Saturday morning as they did not figure among the list of OST swimmers announced by the international governing body of swimming.

Among the 900 slots available 439 have gone to the swimmers who have attained the ‘A’ qualifying mark, while 150 have been earmarked for universal places. On the day, 69 men and 58 women were hand- ed the invite, which of course excluded the Indians based on their timing.

Speaking about the turn of events, Pradeep Kumar, chief coach of the Indian swimming team said, “I have always maintained that the entire selection process which has been introduced this year by FINA is very complicated. No other federation has a cap on the number of athletes qualifying. It is very heartbreaking because each of them has worked very hard to swim that time.”

The irony of the situation is that, the Indians have no chance of entering the Games through a wildcard, because according the rule a country with athletes having attained invitational timing is not eligible for the wildcard.

Lashing out at FINA, Pradeep added, “Now it looks like the boys are paying a price for qualifying. While swimmers with poor performance record will become Olympians, our boys are left dejected.”