Prasanta Karmakar wins bronze

Prasanta Karmakar capitalised on his outing in the international German swimming championship for the disabled in Berlin by winning a bronze medal and qualifying for the IPC world swimming championship to be staged in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, from August 15 to 21.

Happy with his performances

Returning from the four-day meet in Germany on Monday night, Karmakar said he was happy with his performances in the seven events as he improved his time every time. He also vowed to prepare hard to bag medals in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.

Karmakar won the bronze in the men's 50-metre butterfly with a time of 29.84 seconds after having clocked 30.27 in the heats.

He made the 50-metre backstroke final as well with a timing of 32.12 seconds, but did not start owing to a miscommunication.

In the 50-metre freestyle, Karmakar clocked 27.92 seconds while finishing seventh in his heats. His time was 0.01 second better than the minimum qualification standard set for the World championship.

Raut impresses

Chetan Giridhar Raut was another swimmer in the six-member contingent who impressed by making the youth final in 50-metre butterfly where he clocked 31.56 seconds. He had failed to start in the 100-metre butterfly final after having finished fifth in his category with a timing of 1:13.78.

Sharath Gayakwad, Vineeta Pathak, Kiran Tak and Sachin Verma were the other members of the Indian team, which was supplied the swimming costume in Germany by the team management after having boarded the flight from home without the FINA-approved costume. Most of the swimmers competed in five to seven events each.

Karmakar, who had spent his own money to buy additional costume of different qualities, said he was keen to train in Brazil if he could afford the expenses.