Budigina misses para swimming medal narrowly
India narrowly missed out on a para-swimming medal after a brave Karthik Budigina finished fourth in the men’s 100m Freestyle S13 final at the Commonwealth Games here on Friday.
In the able-bodied event, Olympian Srihari Nataraj’s campaign suffered a setback as he failed to make the men’s 50m backstroke final, finishing a disappointing seventh in the semifinals. Budigina settled for the fourth place with a time of 57.57 seconds.
Imam Ali, the other Indian participant in the event, ended in seventh place, clocking 1:03.73 in the medal event. South African Nathan Hendricks claimed the gold medal in 54.54s, while Scotland’s Stephen Clegg bagged silver with 55.16s and England’s Matthew Redfern secured bronze in 56.86s. The S13 classification is for athletes with visual impairments.
In the men’s men’s 50m backstroke semifinals for able-bodied swimmers, Nataraj ended his semifinal in seventh place with a time of 25.29 seconds. The top eight swimmers who qualified for the final had a timing of less than 25 seconds. Earlier in the day, Budigina and Imam Ali made the finals of the 100m freestyle S13 event after all the eight swimmers who competed in the heats got through. While Budigina was third in the heats with a timing of 57.10sec, Ali was bottom of the heap with 1:05.32sec.
Budigina originally started his sports journey in rowing before transitioning to para-swimming during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nataraj had earlier qualified for the men’s 50m backstroke semifinals, finishing joint 14th in heats.
Nataraj, a two-time Olympian who holds multiple national records, had clocked 25.52 seconds alongside Bermuda’s Jack Harvey, just about making the semifinal start list, which comprises the top 16 from heats. The Indian was fifth in his eight-man heat. However, he could not clear the semifinals.
