World swimming’s governing body FINA has invalidated the results from the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championship held in April in Tashkent, two months after India swimmer S.P. Likith had alleged that timings were tampered with to suit home swimmers.
The competition was an Olympic qualification event where two Uzbek swimmers were declared to have sealed their berths for Tokyo 2020.
India’s Srihari Nataraj had clocked 54.07s in the 100m backstroke event, a best Indian performance, just 0.22s short of the mark for Tokyo.
His timing of 25.11s in the 50m backstroke was also a new high.
Rich haul
Indians, in general, had come away with a rich haul of medals (18 gold, seven silver and four bronze), including two in the breaststroke events for Likith.
On Thursday, Monal Chokshi, Swimming Federation of India (SFI) secretary, confirmed that the timings clocked in Uzbekistan were annulled after objections from various quarters. But he said that the SFI had no role in this.
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