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The Indian senior national swimming championships, which will be held from July 2 to July 5 at the GMC Balayogi Sports Complex in Hyderabad will serve as a qualifying event for the Paris Olympics 2024.
The period to achieve qualification time standards for the individual swimming events at the 2024 sports extravaganza started on March 1 this year and will conclude on June 23, 2024. Each country is eligible for the maximum quota of two swimmers for every individual event, given that they attain the Olympic Qualification Time (QQT). Swimmers who have obtained the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which is a little bit simpler to reach, will be considered to fill in any remaining quotas if the OQT is not met, as per Olympics.com. The national record holders in Indian swimming, Sajan Prakash and Srihari Nataraj made history when they became the first Indian swimmers to achieve OQT ahead of Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Maana Patel, India's leading women's backstroke swimmer joined them through Universality quota (invitational places). India fielded three swimmers at Tokyo 2020, the most at any games. The Universality quota allows one male and a female competitor from a nation to participate in the Olympics, provided no other swimmer from same gender qualifies for the Games or receives a World Aquatics (world's swimming federation) invite based on his/her Olympic selection time (B Time). Sajan Prakash participated in the men's 100- and 200-meter butterfly events at Tokyo 2020. The men's and women's 100m backstroke competitions included Srihari Nataraj and Maana Patel, respectively. But none of the three Indian swimmers could get to the finals. The senior national swimming championships, presently in their 76th edition, will function as the penultimate qualification event before the Asian Games in addition to being a qualifier for Paris 2024. From September 23 to October 8, Hangzhou, China, will host the continental gathering. Guwahati hosted the most recent senior national swimming championships. In the men's and women's categories, respectively, Siva Sridhar and Maana Patel were chosen as the best swimmers after winning three individual gold medals apiece. (ANI)
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