Record in 200m gives me target for Asian Qualification, says Siva S

The Bengaluru swimmer created a new meet record in the 200m individual medley event.

Siva Sridhar representing hosts Jain University came up with a dominant performance in the 200m individual medley to create a new meet record of 2:05.43 seconds. time. Rohit Benediction of Anna University finished second with a time of 2:12.33 and Siddhant Sejwal of Panjab University touched third clocking 2:14.70 secs. 

Carrying the onus of winning maximum medals for the host university, Siva said, "Surely there is pressure on the swim team to win maximum medals but the university has backed us tremendously to help us pursue our degree by providing scholarships based on performance, so the onus is on us now to do well," he said, after the race. At the KIUG 2021, Siva will participate in 50m,100m, 200m backstroke, 200m, 400m IM, 100m butterfly and 100m breast stroke. 

From a middle-class family, Siva has seen a fair share of financial struggles yet continues to keep his eyes firmly set on his targets for this year. "With no earning member in the family after my father suffered a stroke last year and subsequently retired from his job, it has been tough to keep up with my ambitions in swimming because it is a financially demanding sport.

But I have received substantial support from my training centre Basavangudi Aquatic Centre. They take care of my training, strength and conditioning costs while Jain University has given me scholarship to pursue MBA. Honestly, it is very hard to survive in a sport like swimming and pursue masters if you can't get this kind of support," he said. 

Siva has now set his sight on making the Indian swim team for the forthcoming Asian Games in China. He is vying to make the qualification mark in 100m backstroke. He needs to break the 55.8 seconds barrier to qualify. "My personal best is 57.6 and I really want to represent India in 100m backstroke, along with Srihari Nataraj, who has already qualified," he said. 

"This is my target for the year. Today's performance has given me confidence to work on the 200 IM event as well and I will look to make the cut (2:02.09 is the A qualifying time) in this event too for the Asian Games." 

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