Maana Patel becomes first Indian female swimmer to qualify for Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Promising athlete Maana Patel made history on Friday as she became the first Indian female swimmer to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics through the ‘Universality quota’.

The Universality quota allows one male and one female competitor from a country to participate in the Olympics, provided no other swimmer from the same gender qualifies for the Games or receives a FINA invite based on his or her Olympic Selection time (B time).

Maana Patel, 21, will join Sajan Prakash and Srihari Natarajan in India’s swimming squad for this month’s Summer Olympics which will take place in Japan’s capital city from July 23 to August 8.

Maana will compete in the women’s 100m backstroke event while Sajan Prakash and Srihari Nataraj will take part in the 200m butterfly and 100m backstroke races respectively after both breached the Olympic A mark at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome last month.

“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,” the Gujarati swimmer told Olympics.com.

“But to be there this time, competing with the best in the world, just gives me goosebumps,” she added.

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!! pic.twitter.com/LBHup0F7RK

— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) July 2, 2021

The 21-year-old sustained an ankle injury in 2019 and only made a comeback earlier this year.

“It was a tough year to come back after the injury,” Maana admitted.

“Though the pandemic and the lockdown was a blessing in disguise as it helped me recuperate well, but then later the frustration crept in. I am not used to staying away from the water for this long,” she said.