“I made a mistake by reaching out for the board with my right hand. Another stroke instead and the result could have been different,” Khade said, who clocked 22.87 seconds in the final.
Swimmer Veerdhawal Khade was a shattered man after missing out on a medal in the 50m freestyle by just 0.03 seconds on Monday.
“It’s heartbreaking, we were hoping he could win any medal,” Khade’s coach Pradeep Kumar told DNA.
Khade lamented his decision to reach out for the board with his right hand. “I made a mistake by reaching out for the board with my right hand. Another stroke instead and the result could have been different,” Khade said, who clocked 22.87 seconds in the final.
China’s Lu Zhiwu clocked 22.37sec to clinch the gold just 0.08 seconds ahead of Japan’s Masayuki Kishida. Another Japanese, Rammaru Harada finished third with a timing of 22.84.
“It’s a big, big miss. He is feeling very bad, but one has to get over it. It is easier said than done but he has another event tomorrow, 50m fly. We will try and concentrate on getting a medal in it,” said Pradeep.
In this blue riband sport, dominated by the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, India has a poor record and there were not much expectations from our swimmers this time too. However, Pradeep said, Khade, who was the only Indian to qualify for the final in the day, had shown enough potential to be a medal contender in the lead up to the Asian Games.
“In the last Asian Swimming Championship he got a silver medal and Asian Games and Asian Championship fall in the same category, so we were expecting the same performance from him.”
Talking about the final race, the coach said after lagging behind Khade fought back splendidly: “He was behind and caught up quite a lot to finish strongly.”
The last Indian to win a individual swimming medal at the Asian Games was Khazan Singh Tokas, who won a silver in 200 metres butterfly in Seoul in 1986. The only Indian swimmer to win a gold medal so far was Sachin Nag in the 100 metres freestyle at the inaugural Asian Games in Delhi in 1951.
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