Hangzhou Asian Games: Indian men's 4x100m medley relay team finishes fifth in final, sets new national record

NEW DELHI: The Indian men's 4x100m medley relay team continued their impressive performance at the Asian Games by obliterating the national record for the second time in a single day. However, despite their remarkable effort, they narrowly missed out on a medal, securing a fifth-place finish on Tuesday.
The team, comprised of Srihari Nataraj, Likhith Selvaraj, Sajan Prakash, and Tanish George Mathew, had previously set a record time of 3:40.84 during the morning heat.In the final, they managed to further improve their performance by clocking an even faster time of 3:40.20.
China emerged victorious in the event, clinching the gold medal with an Asian record time of 3:27.01, while Korea and Japan secured the silver and bronze medals with times of 3:32.05 and 3:32.52, respectively.
During the morning session, the Indian team had already surpassed the national record of 3:44.94, which was previously set by Nataraj, Sandeep Sejwal, Prakash, and Aaron D'Souza in the previous edition of the Games held in Jakarta.
They finished fourth overall to advance to the final.
The two other Indian swimmers competing in the day -- Palak Joshi and Shivangi Sarma -- failed to progress to the finals of their respective events.
While Shivangi finished 17th in the women's 100m freestyle event, Palak was (2:25.81) ranked 14 among 19 swimmers in the women's 200m backstroke (58.31).
Aryan Nehra and Kushagra Rawat also disappointed by finishing seventh and eighth in the men's 1500m freestyle event.
But Aryan managed to achieve a personal milestone by setting a new national record of 15:20.91. He bettered the 15:23.66 set by Advait Page in 2021.
Aryan's previous personal best was 15:29.76. Kushagra finished last with a timing of 15:44.61.
(With PTI Inputs)