Maana India’s first female swimmer to qualify for Olympics

TIL Desk Sports/ Indian woman swimmer Maana Patel’s participation in the Tokyo Olympics has been confirmed through ‘Universality quota’, the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) said.

Maana will take part in the 100m backstroke at the Tokyo Games and is the third Indian swimmer to have qualified after both Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash achieved Olympic Qualification Timing (OQT) ‘A’ level recently.

“”Backstroke swimmer Maana Patel has become the 1st female and 3rd Indian swimmer to qualify for #Tokyo2020. I congratulate Maana, who qualified through Universality Quota. Well done!!,” tweeted Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju.

“It’s an amazing feeling. I have heard about the Olympics from fellow swimmers and watched it on the television and seen a lot of pictures,” Maana told Olympics.com. “But to be there this time, competing with the best in the world, just gives me goosebumps.”