The four Indian swimmers Virdhawal Khade, Sandeep Sejwal, Aaron D'Souza and Saurabh Sangvekar, with the B qualification standard for the London Games, technically termed as the Olympic Selection Time (OST), wait for the final selection announcement from the International Swimming Federation (FINA).
Khade (100m freestyle), D’Souza (200m freestyle), Sangvekar (1500m freestyle) and Sejwal (100m breaststroke) are in contention.
The FINA has announced a list of 439 swimmers from around 50 countries as confirmed entries with the A standard qualification, the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT).
It will then finalise the relay teams — 16 per event.
Thereafter, countries without any qualified swimmers will be given a chance to field a maximum of one male and one female swimmer as part of the Universality Places, for which the total shall not exceed 150.
Since India has swimmers in the OST category, it will not be considered for Universality Places.
Incidentally, the total number of swimmers for the Olympics cannot exceed 900.
The swimmers with the B standard qualification will be the last to be considered.
The swimmers with the OST will be ranked in an Olympic Games Qualification Ranking, based on the performances from March 2011 to June 18 2012, listing only two from each country.
As per the rule, the highest ranked swimmer with an OST in each of the 26 individual Olympic events will be invited to compete first.
This process will continue in groups of 26, until the quota of 900 swimmers is reached.
The last date of entries for swimming for the London Games is July 9.
Keywords: London Games, Indian swimmers
India with no A-standard qualifier seems likely to go unrepresented in swimming in London 2012. By the FINA criterion,either Khade or Sejwal could have earned a Universality place if they had not attained the B-standard timings! But instead of blaming the system let us accept that we still have a long way to go. When our stars had excelled in 2009-10 in the now-banned bodysuits, they had raised hopes of glory but none of them have achieved personal bests in 2011-12, which means they had touched their peaks and can go no faster. As one who had dreams of Khade or Sejwal going great guns in London 2012, for they are India's best ever male swimmers along with Khazan Singh, Ramdeo Singh and Mohinder Singh Rana, it will take some time for the reality to sink in. Another Olympic Games when no Indian swimmer takes part, let alone reaches the second round. They tried their best but that was not good enough. Will Rio 2016 be any better for D'Souza or Sangvekar or Indian swimmer X?
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