Maana Patel becomes 1st Indian female swimmer to qualify for Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo Olympics 2020: Maana Patel has become the first Indian female swimmer to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics through universality quota, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) said on Friday. Patel is the third Indian female swimmer who will be participating in Tokyo Olympics 2020. Earlier, Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash have earned the automatic qualification (A time) for the Olympics. Also Read | Confirmed! T20 World Cup 2021 to be shifted to the UAE [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image Source: Twitter[/caption] "Many congratulations to backstroke swimmer Maana Patel who becomes the 1st female and 3rd Indian swimmer to qualify for #TokyoOlympics Patel qualified through universality quota. #Cheer4India," SAI tweeted. Also Read | Kiren Rijiju launches official Theme Song for Indian Olympic Team to Tokyo 2020 [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Image Source: Twitter[/caption] Sajan Prakash, last week, became the first Indian swimmer to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics as he clocked 1:56:38 in men's 200m butterfly at the Sette Colli Trophy while the qualification cut-off was 1:56:48. On Wednesday, Srihari Nataraj became the second Indian swimmer to qualify for the showpiece event. The qualification time (A time) for the 100m Backstroke event was set at 53.85 seconds. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="665"] Image Source: Twitter[/caption] Earlier in June, the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) had announced Maana Patel as a nomination for the Universality Places for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju took to Twitter and wrote: "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!!" -PTC News