Asian Age Group Swimming Championships: Virdhawal Khade misses out on Olympic 'A' cut despite winning men's 50m freestyle

Bengaluru: Virdhawal Khade clinched India’s seventh gold medal at the 10th Asian Age Group Championship but failed to make the Olympic ‘A’ cut in the men’s 50m freestyle event, in Bengaluru on Wednesday. Khade clocked 22.59 seconds to finish ahead of Khurshidjon Tursunov (22.96) of Uzbekistan and Iranian Gharehhassanloo Benyamin (23.23). [caption id=“attachment_5031971” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Virdhawal Khade. AFP[/caption] The gold medal-winning feat was, however, not enough for the 2010 Asian Games bronze medallist to make the Olympic ‘A’ qualification mark, set at 22.01 seconds. “I am quite disappointed with my timing. I was fully tapered for this meet, I got off to a great start but somehow my timing with the technique was not put to the mark,” Khade said. Earlier, this month during the senior nationals, Khade had clocked 22.44 seconds in the same event. “I will be attempting again next month during the FINA World Cup in Singapore and I want to achieve it this year although there is time till June. If I can make the qualification now then I can just focus on training for Tokyo,” he added. Sajan Prakash won his second silver in the men’s 100m butterfly category with a timing of 54.42 seconds. The gold went to Wongcharoen Navaphat (54.06) of Thailand while Mhah Qali Abbas (55.10) of Kuwait bagged the bronze. Kushagra Rawat, was excellent in his 1500m where he comfortably won with a time of 15:41.54 seconds making it his third gold medal of the event. He touched ahead of Chang Cheng Li Wei (15:49.85) of Chinese Taipei and Kittiya Tanakrit (16:19.75) of Thailand. Likith Selvaraj clinched his second bronze of the Championships in the 50 metres breast stroke with a time of 28.38 seconds. Vladislav Mustafin (27.68) of Uzbekistan and Denis Petrashov (28.35) of Kyrgyz Republic clinched gold and silver respectively. Shoan Ganguly, swimming his first Asian Age Group Championships, also continued to increase his medal tally. He won silver in the 400 metres freestyle Group II boys clocking 4:07.21 seconds. On the inaugural day he had won gold and two silvers. He finished behind Liu Haiyang (4:03.76) of China and Huang Chun Chieh (4:08.04) of Chinese Taipei. In the morning session, India’s mixed freestyle relay team comprising the quartet of Srihari Natraj, Khade, Maana Patel and Shivani Kataria clinched bronze with a timing of 3:42.56. Thailand (3:39.17) and Uzbekistan (3:41.73) bagged gold and silver respectively.