Paris Olympics swimming: Indian campaign ends as Srihari, Dhinidhi fail to reach semis

Nanterre (France), Jul 28 (PTI) 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.

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. PTI